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 Post subject: platinum block for ring
PostPosted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 11:44 pm 
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Okay, I am embarrassed to ask this, probably the nuttiest idea to date.

Let's say I want a ring for myself, for a single colored stone. But want it stamped not caste. And I met someone with massive press/stamping equipment via a gentleman who makes titanium rings.

So I want to make a pure platinum block, pound out the porosity to a higher density, have the finger hole drilled, and then set out to carving out the filigree myself with tiny drills and saws. Where can I go to start learning more about this? what dimensions would it have to be for a 10 1/2 ring size? I took a silversmithing class but was thinking of doing the whole thing without heat. Is that possible?

As far as the inspiration for all this, download the pdf catalog from vancraeynest.com, ring number 1021. That in a man's ring all plat for a 8-10mm deep cushion stone, even without the stone or diamonds, was BIG bucks.

This would be years in the making. I could see cutting and carving out filigree but engraving and chasing? wow. I wonder if anyone else does their kind of work? thanks!


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:21 am 
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I did a bit of reading when you were chasing a machine to do it all. Yup, a lot of work involved. I've had a go at a piercing, repousse and chasing but not engraving yet....and not on a small scale like a ring. :shock:

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 Post subject: Re: platinum block for ring
PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 11:54 am 
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rock lobstah wrote:
This would be years in the making. I could see cutting and carving out filigree but engraving and chasing? wow. I wonder if anyone else does their kind of work? thanks!


Yes, there are quite a few people doing this sort of work. Some are doing it in jewelry, some on guns and knives. If you really want to be awed, head on over to Steve Lindsay's engraving site, http://www.engravingforum.com/ and see some of the inctricate stuff being done in several different mediums. Here's an example of work being done by people frequenting that site:
Image Image

As for the time required to do this work, well it's really pretty fast...once you've spent the years required to get all of the skills down pat. It's certainly NOT a crazy idea and you've got to start somewhere, so you'd might as well start here and now. Ten years or so down the line and we'll all be asking you how to do this kind of stuff.

Just edited this to say that even though the image links don't seem to work they are worth looking at, as are a lot of the other images in the "Album" area.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:21 pm 
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http://www.zimmermann-quebec.com/method ... 1015022551

When I asked about palladium, Mr. Zimmerman from Quebec answered and he makes his rings without casting or soldering. This is a link he posted to his method.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:10 pm 
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empress, nice link. I believe the no casting part, but to assemble all those little pieces he does have to use soldering...there's just no other way to stick them all together. I love looking at pictures of really fine work, thanks !

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 10:43 pm 
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Thanks for the responses and links, that's great info, I'm going to try and find someone who offers engraving classes in the NH/Boston area.


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 1:51 am 
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I used to do a lot of hand engraving. Rock, if you can't find anyone teaching in New England, head out to Kansas and talk to the nice folks at GRS. I think they still offer week-long classes on basic engraving.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 2:34 pm 
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Well I was hoping someone else would mention this but I have read through your idea a few times now and it seems to me that this method will produce an awful lot of waste in filings, a rough calculation is a couple of thousand dollars worth?

Are my sums horribly wrong?

Tony.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 3:55 pm 
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Right, that was kind of the first question, what would the dimensions have to be for a 10 1/2 ring to fit a 8-10 mm and relatively deep stone? 15x22x25mm? That's like, what, 2 oz of pure platinum? kind of insane. I'd plan on keeping those shavings! But with some more research it's turning out that there are these pneumatic hand engravers so one doesn't have to think hammer and chisel anymore. cost around $1700-3600. But then there is the scope with a little headrest and a vice that spins around. And other little bits and gadgets. I thought faceting was expensive but this beats it. (unless you go with the hammer and chisel but that's like us going with a jam peg) what worries me the most is there are machines now with fricking laser beams. I wonder if they can do whatever a hand engraver can do on standard shapes like rings and other things that can fit in the machine.


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 5:02 pm 
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a size 10 1/2 is 20.17mm ID, so assuming a 4mm thickness and 5mm width, at 21450 kg per m^3 the shank would be 700 cubic mm and weigh 15grams. but that's just a round shank, not a cube. so .005mX.02417m, and add 10mm for where the top stone will go, .03417m, and x 21450kg per m^3 gives you 88.6g, or 2.85 troy ounces, which is $3873. With the way things are going with the economy, if I buy it now by the time it's done the shavings might be worth that alone!


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 6:33 pm 
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Umm, rock, you don't start with one huge block. You make these things from several smaller pieces which are all forged to their basic thicknesses and shapes, soldered together and then you start hacking away. A large amount of material is removed via burrs once the basic outline of the engraved or sculpted area is known. Getting to the basic shapes is really pretty straightforward...it's those little details that are the tough part.

I wouldn't worry about the tools too much either. Starting out with flat practice plates hot glued to a board and attached to a turntable works fine for a while, as does using a pair of optivisors. If you need a microscope you can easily get by with a used B&L off E-Bay for a few hundred $. By the time you need all the fancy stuff, you'll realize that most of it is for convenience and not necessity. Concerned about sharpening gravers ? Use your faceting machine...works great, (I think I've even got a faceting diagram in GemCad called "Graver"). The air graver is worth getting, but you can easily get by with Lindsay's cheapest model at $600, though you do need a small compressor too. It really is a lot less expensive than faceting, particularly if you consider the cost of rough...pieces of flat hot rolled steel sell by the pound, not carat.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 9:18 pm 
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OH, yea, okay. I was thinking how to do it with no heat, but that makes sense. Can people buy small blocks like that and then solder them together, or does one have to make them?


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 10:09 pm 
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Couldn't you just buy a ring blank pre made to practice with at the start?
There again, youd be better off trying the techniques on silver first.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 10:28 pm 
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sure to practice on ( not platinum nor even a ring be the first attempt) , but I got started on this idea from trying to figure out how I could (eventually) make a better ring than casting to set my stones into. so there is the old time die stamped, but can't find anyone who sells die stamped semi-mounts (except van craeynest, which is multi-thousands a ring without any stones). I met someone who knows someone with heavy duty "pounding equipment"- I think he said 50k ton?! So the idea is to get platinum blocks from somewhere, don't know where, which are probably caste, pound them somehow, drill the finger hole and maybe the stone hole, have a jeweler solder them together, and then engrave it. This is all an exercise in getting away from casting to eventually get to the level of detailed work that casting can't support.


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 11:27 pm 
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You could engrave a cast piece.

It sounds to me like you are making it harder rather than easier, especially since platinum is the most difficult metal to work.

IMHO - but what do I know?

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