The original wedding ring
I got married in 2010 and at the time I wore a majority of silver jewelry. I did not want to wear both an engagement ring and a wedding band so I opted for a two in one ring. Something very classic like a traditional round center diamond set high on a simple band wasn’t for me. I always loved pear shaped diamonds and since my ring had a double function I went for a multiple intertwined bands look. My goal was to make something modern but not so trendy that I would get tired of after a few years. Here is what I originally designed with my CAD designer of the time:
I picked a diamond in my husband's budget of the time, a beautiful pear shaped diamond of 0.46ct in G color VS2 clarity and with the dimensions 6.6mm x 4.1mm. My final wedding band looked like this:
Why I wanted to upgrade my wedding ring
The years went by and I never took off my ring, even when I was working at my bench forging metal. The repetitive vibrations of hammering metal eventually caused a big crack at the tip of my pear shaped diamond. The crack started from the tip and went all the way down to the culet, the bottom part of the diamond. Just like my diamond, I was crushed. I brought it to a lapidarist who tried to salvage my diamond by recutting it in a smaller size, keeping the most weight possible. I ended up losing about 25% of the original weight.
Over the past years I started making more and more fine jewelry and advertising my bespoke services to my customers. At some point I got self conscious for wearing a ring that was so worn out and with such a small diamond.
Finding my new center stone
One day I was purchasing gemstones from one of my diamond dealers in Diamond District NYC and I saw a very clean VVS and E color pear shaped diamond. I inquired about the price but it seemed much bigger than my current one and likely out of my budget.
It turns out that this diamond was 0.6ct, slightly more than my original 0.46ct diamond. It seemed very large because its height was very shallow: imagine squeezing a ball of clay between your fingers. The weight of the ball doesn't change but the top surface becomes bigger. A regular 0.6ct pear shape is usually 7.6mm x 4.6mm from a top view, this shallow 0.6ct diamond is 8.8mm x 5.3mm. This is the typical measurements for a roughly 0.85ct pear diamond!
To maximize the reflections of the light in a gemstone there are some optimal proportions to observe. Stones that are optimally cut to reflect the light command a higher price point. Since this diamond was actually very shallow it was also cheaper so all the better for me. I didn’t want a high sitting diamond because I have an active lifestyle and was afraid it would easily get caught on things.
The making of my new wedding ring
Once I bought the diamond, my CAD designer scanned it and we designed my new ring. I still liked my intertwined bands so I wanted to keep that but have it in yellow gold instead of my original white gold one. For the setting I wanted it to let the diamond shine so I opted for an open bezel and 3 prongs look. Here are the creation files showing the initial ring versus the new design:
It is very common for yellow gold rings to have a white metal head to hold the diamond so that the setting color doesn’t distract from its shine. I chose to have a platinum head on a 18k yellow gold band for that reason.
After we finalized the CAD files, we 3D printed the two parts of the design in wax. My caster then turned the wax of the band into 18k yellow gold and the one of the diamond setting into platinum.
I cleaned the rough metal castings that still displayed all the lines from the wax printing step. Here is how the 18k yellow gold looked before I cleaned it:
After cleaning the metal, it is time to weld the gold and platinum parts together and set the pear diamond. The last step consists of polishing the finished ring to a mirror finish.
To give you an idea of the before and after I wore the two rings side by side:
Needless to say, I am beyond happy with my new wedding ring and I keep my old one as a backup for when I travel!
If this story has inspired you to upgrade your own engagement ring or wedding ring, let's make your new ring come true together! Start by getting in touch here:
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