Using what was left of Mum's ring
1st August 2023 - Customer location: Weipa
A ring made using the customer’s late Mother’s diamonds.
Back in March this year I created the above ring for a customer in Weipa. The diamonds were taken from a ring worn by the customer’s late mother. You can read more about it in this blog post.
The unset old ring.
It was not economical to use the old gold in the new ring. There was not enough and we also needed some white gold for the diamond section. It was decided to put it aside to be used later. That later would be a pendant.
A cropped version of the photo sent to me to determine the size of the pendant.
In July 2023 the customer had found a pendant design she wanted to use the gold to make. The main stone would be a Garnet that I would need to supply.
To determine the size we needed the pendant to be made to I asked the customer to email me a photo of her upper body with a ruler across her chest. I then edited in the design and modified it until she was happy with the size.
Once the size was confirmed I could use the ruler in the photo to calculate the actual size needed to create the pendant. Quote was then done and approved……we were ready to make the pendant.
The first job with the old ring was to melt it up so that I could then from it into a usable shape. For some weird reason it still fascinates me how quickly a piece of jewellery that might have taken many hours to make can very quickly be reduced to a molten blob. Unsetting it might take a quite a bit of time but the melting goes very fast.
The finished pendant.
The old gold was 18ct yellow gold and I gave the customer the small section of 18ct white gold for the diamonds. The garnet is 8mm in diameter and the total diamond weight was .035 carats.
Simple double rail for the side of the pendant.
The design is quite simple but one this customer loved the look of. It is now an irreplaceable piece of jewellery that keeps her connected in a small way to her late Mother.
At the end of the make we had 1.1 grams still remaining and the gold was returned to the customer. She is now planning to make earrings with that. Have a great week.