ring making

Peter McBride Goldsmith

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Making a forged Gold and Platinum Diamond set ring.

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This page is probably best read in conjunction with my page on jewellery tools and how they are used. Links in the text will lead to pages illustrating the tools from that page.

	A client brought her diamond ring to me because the setting was worn out, and she wanted a lower, safer setting, more suited to her active lifestyle. As she described the ring she wanted I did the quick sketch to the left. The old ring is next to the new finished ring. The ring is a very simple style, consisting of a forged flat 18ct yellow gold band with a platinum bezel type setting for the emerald cut diamond.
	I cut from a bar of 18ct yellow gold the length of metal I need. The metal for the ingot was melted in a crucible, and poured into an ingot mould. Then rolled through the wire mills and annealed.
	I rolled the bar part way into the wire mills to thin down the ends and leave a "bubble" of metal in the centre to form the thicker head of the ring.
	Here is the ring blank formed. From experience I look and estimate the amount of metal need to form the head of the ring.
	Annealing the blank in preparation to squeezing the thicker part sideways in the flat rolling mill seen in the next picture.
	The metal is rolled through side-on to squeeze the head to the correct width for the diamond setting.
	The ends of the blank are then rolled down to the thickness of the back of the ring. They are worked in and out leaving the head thick.
	The blank is a little long for the given ring size, the extra will be good to help bend the ring round. It is annealed again ready for stamping and shaping..
	There are 3 punch marks on this ring, my makers mark , the gold quality 750 and the platinum Pt mark.
	The ring bender is a mechanical swaging block.
	The ring is formed up as far as it can be in the bender.

	Ring bending pliers are used to form the rest of the ring into shape.


	The extra length of each tail is cut of on the bench peg with a jeweller saw.
	The ends are trimmed to about 3 sizes under to enable the ring to be brought up to size without cutting any more of the band away.
	Soldering the ring closed with the highest melting point 18ct yellow gold solder I have. That will mean the joint is almost invisible, as the colour of the solder is very close to that of the metal..
	After pickling the flux off the ring, it is hammer forged on the ring mandrel, roughly getting the flat top, and side formed, and then hammered up to the correct finger size.
	The flat top ready for the setting.
	A strip of 95% platinum (5 % copper) is rolled out to 0.5mm thickness, and about 2.5mm width for the setting.
	Using pliers it is carefully bent into the shape, and slightly larger than the diamond.
	The join in platinum is welded using a thin wire of the same metal.
	The shape is refined on a jeweller's anvil. then the outside is filled to the shape of the diamond, and emery polished in preparation for soldering onto the ring.
	The setting and diamond are placed on the top of the band to see how much of the sides and top need to be removed.
	The ring is placed in a ring clamp and the sides are filled down to the desired taper and the width to suite the setting.
	The top is filled flat, and square to the centre plane of the ring.
	With the setting in place the inner edge is scribed in preparation for the filling of the "U" shape under the diamond.
	Once filled the outer edge of the setting provides a line to mark the position where the outer edge of the ring head will be.
	The head and shoulders are filled to shape, and the "U" shape is polished first with emery paper wrapped around the file and then with polishing brushes and mops on the polishing machine..
	The ring is cleaned ready for soldering the setting.
	Binding wire is twisted to hold the setting in place while it is soldered to the ring.

	The bearing surface for the diamond is cut using a small ball burr in the handpiece of the flex-drive suspension drill, on the right of the workbench.
	With the ring in a ring clamp a rocking / pushing, tool made from an old file tang, is used to push the platinum over the top of the diamond.
	The bezel setting edges are shaped on the outside with fine needle files and the inside edge is cut with engraving tools. The ring is polished with progressively finer emery sticks to remove all the file marks. The sticks are made by winding emery paper around various shaped sticks.
	The complete ring is then polished using progressively finer compounds on the brushes, discs and mops on the polishing motor.