My first ring engraving

[Jeffrey]

After devoting some time learning to draw for engraving, I'm starting to do some cutting. Since I'm not ready for prime time I thought to make some presents for friends and here is the first attempt at producing an engraved ring. Making beautiful engraved jewelry is a real challenge for me. The drawings look far better than the finished ring! I just figure that by the time I've engraved 20 or 30 rings I'll start to recognize the elements and learn the techniques that make for beautiful engraved rings.

I heartily welcome criticism and advice, with thanks!

[SVD]

That came out far too well for you to need this bit of advice on ring practice but I'll toss it out for the others:

Just about the cheapest source for 'practice rings' is a chunk of copper water pipe and a tubing cutter (or a jeweler's saw). Slice off a section of pipe of the right width and you have a nice little 'ring' to practice on. It's tricky at first to get a narrow section with a tubing cutter but it's also sometimes tricky to get a clean straight cut with a saw. Although using the saw makes it a lot easier to get a ring in this basic shape, with a small shank and a wide top (heck, I've done lots of those, unintentionally).

Even for you folks who are good at rings and such, keep the CWP rings in mind for use as ring shaped practice plates. As has been mentioned more than once, designs can look very different on a 3D surface than they do in a flat drawing / plate.

[Carol Carter-Wientjes]

I think you nailed this pattern & it came out VERY well!!

[Jeffrey]

Steve - thank you for the tips. Since I have a full jewelry mfg setup I can just cast a bunch of silver rings to practice on.

Carol - Thank you very much! I have so much to learn, I didn't know it came out well I was pretty lazy on the side scrolls, I spent so much time on this first piece I just wanted it finished! I love your sculpted work!

[Carol Carter-Wientjes]

Hey thanks Jeffrey, Sculpting is so much fun and you get to make teeny tiny tools! I just started engraving too (2 weeks ago) so still practicing running leaf patterns on flat copper plates and am anxious to graduate to round surfaces (and silver!). Like Steve suggested, planning to use copper pipe as the guinea pig.

May I ask what gravers you used? Looks like you created a nice depth to work with on either side of the leaves.

I was wondering if you cast the rings, really like the shape of this one. Are you gonna set anything into those triangular areas where the leaves terminate at the bezel?

What did you use as an oxidizer? I've been using Jax but not happy with it.

Btw, noticed you're an Iowan, Cedar Rapids native here

[Jeffrey]

Hi Carol

Yup, SE Iowa here, 90 miles south of Cedar Rapids. There's a lot of engraving history in this part of Iowa.

I used a Lindsay patent 90 degree carbalt graver for all the cutting. I started out with a 120 but it proved too wide to gain any depth. I'm pretty much sticking with the 90 now, but considering how green I am to engraving that may change...

Most of the rings I make are designed in a CAD program (Rhino, to be exact). I then mill them on a table top mill (Roland MDX-40 with a rotary axis and the Protowizard add-ons, if you're interested in that). I like the perfect symmetry I can achieve working this way, it's simply better than I can do by hand, and now that I have a few years experience it's faster than hand work to achieve. I don't like to get into arguments with people about hand vs. CAD work, since CAD is just another tool like a hammer, so I don't get into that here. I will say that I started off 40 years ago apprenticed to some very fine jewelers and learned pretty much all the hand techniques (except hand engraving darnit!) and only switched over to CAD and milling about, omg, 19 years ago, wow time flies... I make rings for a living, mostly for gem merchants for their higher end gems, or I used to, now I'm mostly retired and learning hand engraving although I usually make one or two pieces a week still.

You know, I was just looking at those triangular sections last night thinking a one pointer would look nice set there! Once I made the ring I realized that it could be set with a faceted stone, a cabbed stone or a pearl/bead, kind of a multi-purpose ring! In this case it's a present for a friend's daughter that wanted a pearl ring. I know it looks funny set instead of drilled and glued onto a peg, but she didn't want her pearl drilled.

Yes, I did use an oxidizing solution called Silver Black, it works really well. I could have used liver of sulphur too, but the solution in the bottle is really convenient to brush on to small areas. When I do silver production I use the liver of sulphur and blacken whole rings in a batch, then put them through a tumbling process of 4 steps. The end result usually is a better polish than I can get by hand. It's funny, I never thought I'd be working in silver, but with precious metals becoming obscenely expensive the market is moving over to silver. I don't really mind, though I may start making steel and titanium rings too. Maybe I can find some unobtanium and make a ring from that too... just kidding of course...

Thanks for the conversation!

Jeffrey

[AndrosCreations]

Beautiful job, Jeffrey! Your engraving skills are taking your jewelry to the next level.