This ring was recently completed for a client. She and her husband are having an anniversary this month and they were wanting to upgrade her diamond ring. I have done work for the family for several years and I was thrilled that they asked me to make a new ring for her from scratch. Her diamond was a 1ct round set with 8 prongs in a fashion that did not show the diamond well. She wanted a larger diamond with side diamonds.
What we came up with was a 1.50ct round center diamond that is Excellent cut with a GIA report. For the sides, we custom designed the ring to hold tapered bullets. The process started with a picture and an idea. Then we proceeded to create the design using Computer Aided Design. This design needed several things. First, the center diamond had to “pop”. It is an excellent cut diamond, the highest in cut quality. We wanted to showcase the brightness of this diamond. So ,we choose a double prong high end look that shows the diamond without noticing the white gold. Next, she wanted the diamond to be set low on the finger, just above the side diamonds. That took some work to get the prong angles just right. We recommended long tapered diamonds for the sides. That way, the entire top of her finger is just showing bright diamonds.
The ring was cast in 18kt white gold which used palladium alloy. This is a more expensive mixture of white gold than the traditional 18kt with standard alloys. However, it makes the ring high end and much whiter in color than traditional 18kt white gold. It will not have to be rhodium plated nearly as often as 18kt white with traditional alloys. It is worth the extra cost. We choose this metal because she wanted to keep her original white gold wedding band. If we had made the ring in platinum, it would have worn out the original wedding band rather quickly as it was already thin.
The next step was fitting the side diamonds. These are called tapered bullets. they look just about like a tapered baguette diamond, but the tips are cut more sharp instead of flat. That gave us the chevron or V shape at the bottom that she wanted to incorporate into the design. I have a specialist in New York that works in fancy shaped matched side diamonds. They took long tapered baguettes and cut four of them in New York to tapered bullets to fit this ring. It was completely custom cut just for this one ring mounting. It is hard to make it more custom that that, diamonds that are cut just for your ring and no other.
The final effect is stunning. The diamonds really pop and the tapered bullets flow from the round center. The ring has a European shank to help with the balance. This is something that we do a lot on our designs. We find that more often than not, it helps with the overall comfort of the ring.
If you are interested in making a custom piece of jewelry, feel free to email me at goodmanjewelers@embarqmail.com or call me at 276-676-3110.
