Jewelry Redesign Story #25: Fiance’s Grandmother’s Ring Done Her Way

THE REDESIGN CHALLENGE:

Margo couldn’t wait to get married. Everything was going perfectly: she had a beautiful engagement ring that she’d had designed custom for her and had booked a beautiful castle in Scotland for the ceremony (Margo’s family is of Scottish descent).

While not exactly a hiccup in her plans, Margo’s fiance asked her to wear his grandmother’s ring as a sort of wedding band to go along with her soon-to-be-made new engagement ring and Margo wasn’t crazy about the ring’s design. Although Margo absolutely loved the idea of honoring the family of her partner, she did not exactly love the design of the ring itself. 

Margo is a very aesthetically sensitive person and knew that if she were to wear this ring it would have to be updated to go with her more modern look. Margo was also very specific about wanting her wedding ring to look more like a band -- not to mention she didn’t want the band to distract from her custom-made engagement ring that she was so excited to have. Her fiance’s grandmother’s ring looked like it was made to stand on its own. 

Margo had a number of specific concerns surrounding the ring. First, Margo was worried that the vertical orientation of the three diamonds at the ring’s center would make it impossible to stack with her engagement ring. Second, Margo felt that the proportions of the ring were very off, with the vertical-set diamonds appearing much stronger than the thin band supporting them. 

Despite these concerns, Margo also wanted to maintain the essence of her fiance’s grandmother’s ring to both honor him, his family, and his grandmother.       

THE REDESIGN PROCESS:

Ring sketch

In order to consider all of Margo’s issues we decided to reorient the setting on the ring. We thought that we could maintain the three diamond design element but make it horizontal while also widening the band to be just a bit larger than the diamonds. We also designed the band to be a bit thicker to balance the weight of the design element. 

3D CAD model and casting

We decided that all we needed to model for this particular redesign was the shank. We were glad that this could be modeled fairly simply in the Rhino CAD modeling system.

THE REDESIGN REVEAL:

Margo was thrilled with how the final ring came out. She loved how such a simple redesign made such a big difference without changing the spirit that her fiance’s grandmother had put into the original ring. Best of all, Margo loved the way that the new ring would go along with her engagement ring that was being made just for her. 

 Final ring

Materials: 14k yellow gold shank with her existing diamond element

Manufacturing Level: Basic

Design Level: Basic 

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