Remodelling with what you have and nothing else (part 2)

November 19th 2012

Last time we looked at a successful remodelling job using only the materials the customer supplied. Today we are going to look at another attempt to do the same but with a very different result. 

Heidi wanted this ring design to the right made from her existing wedding and engagement rings. Problem was that she did not have any princess cut diamonds, her existing jewellery was mostly 9ct yellow gold and she wanted 18ct white gold........and you get the picture by now.

Despite these problems I did up some graphics showing the closest I could get to the design using her shape and size diamonds. She decided to proceed so I made up a silver draft.

Now the silver draft is the ultimate check before we make the actual piece of jewellery so I also made a silver draft of her intended new wedding ring to show her how they would look together. Heidi tried it on and liked it but I could tell was not thrilled. I told her to think about it and if she decided to cancel we would look at doing something else.

Well Heidi did decide to cancel the remodel and instead got me to quote on making the exact design she liked at the start with the matching wedding ring using all new diamonds. We discussed a budget and I then gave her the details of the best quality diamonds I could do in that design in 18ct palladium white gold. After Heidi understood the quality of diamonds she was buying for her budget she asked me to proceed and I returned to the original design to make it exactly. The finished rings are shown below.

So now I have shown you a remodelling job that worked using only existing jewellery and another that resulted in using all new materials because we could not get the desired result using what we had. Next time I post I we will look at another remodelling job that is half way in between the two.