Welcome to my studio.
This series of photos will take you through the process of making a ring-from sketch to stone setting. Ninety percent of my work is done at my bench, the rolling mill, and the soldering area to the left.

I first choose a stone, then do a preliminary sketch, mostly to work out the proportions and determine the thicknesses and sizes of gold parts I will need for the piece.

Fine gold, silver and copper are carefully weighed in exact proportions to produce a specific alloy of 18K gold. These are melted together with an acetyline torch, and poured into an ingot mold.

The 18K ingot is passed through a hand-cranked mill to form sheet (the upper rolls) and heavy square wire (the lower rolls) to any desired length and thickness.

Wires of many shapes can be made by pulling through a series of progressively smaller holes in a steel draw plate. Here, I'm pulling half-round wire for the ring shank.

From left to right: ingot, slightly rolled ingot, bezel made from rolled strip formed with pliers and fused at seam, ring blank cut from .80mm sheet, half-round wire from previous photo.

The ends of the ring blank are carefully filed in preparation for fusing together.

Here, I am forming the ring blank with pliers.

Here are the basic building blocks of the ring: The bezel, ring blank, 1.2mm strip for the elements at the ends of the bezel, half-round wire, and 1.2mm round wire.

Here the ring blank seam has been joined, the bezel fitted and fused to the shank. The half-round wire has been split at the ends and formed to fit the ring, and the strip has been joined to form the triple bar to be cut in half for the next step.

The bezel finials and the pre-formed half round shank wire are attached to the ring. An esoteric technique of high-temperature copper-assisted fusing is used, as solder would potentially flood granulation in later steps. Iron binding wire is used to hold pieces in position during heating.

Pregnant Chalice
Small sculpture. Egg made of one piece of fine silver. Base made of 18K yellow, white and red gold, chrysacollas, sapphires, rubies, diamonds and opals. 8 inches tall. 2002.
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Four firings later: All the major parts of the ring are attached. Six, 1.2mm wire forms have been added, as well as two small round bezels and some 1.5mm beads. The ring is ready to granulate.

To make granules, two finely drawn wires are fed into an adjustable chopper. The pile of snippets in the pan will produce thousands of consistently-sized granules about .50mm in diameter.

The snippets are dispersed and suspended in layers of charcoal powder in a graphite crucible. Heating to 2000 F causes the gold to melt into near-perfect spheres, which are then cooled, sifted and ready to use.

The ring is heated slightly to oxidize and clean the surface. With a fine sable brush, granules are applied with a watery glue-flux solution. When dry, the granules are held in position for the next step.

A green copper salt solution is now added and allowed to dry. In the next step, at the crucial temperature, the copper mixes with the surface of the gold, causing all the parts to molecularly bond.

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
For the granules to adhere properly, an oxygen-depleted environment of about 1800 F must be produced. I achieve these conditions with a breath/propane blowpipe.

After all the granules are attached, final trimming and pre-polishing is done. Here, I am using a reciprocating hammer to move the gold bezel over the stone. Cleanup of the setting is done with gravers and polishing wheels.

The finished ring, total work time, about 25 hours. As I was working, two small changes in the design were made: adding two diamonds where I had originally intended gold beads, and scalloping the finials to enhance the areas where the wires join. I've decided to call it "Cloud Ring" because of these scalloped edges.

Time for a break. I hope you enjoyed "The Process".