Remodelling diamonds

As you are aware from my previous blogs, something I love to do is remodel existing jewellery, to re-imagine a group of often forgotten pieces and give them a new life. The perfect challenge for me is to take existing jewellery and loose gems, and after a brief consultation with our client, design new pieces that utilise the old components and transform them into exciting, wearable jewellery. Instead of sitting in a drawer or safe they are useful again, and loved again.

Recently I created a stunning diamond ring using the stones out of a group of old rings and the client is ‘over the moon’ about it.

Before

I thought it would be an interesting exercise, because everyone’s taste is different, to show you not only what my customer chose to have made, but the other options using different forms of setting that I could have created.

In the ring that Matthew made for this remodelling commission, we used pave or bead setting where a group of small stones is arranged in a regular or lined grid and small beads, or miniature claws are created to give a mass diamond effect. Laid out as three rows, it worked with the customer’s stones perfectly and the diamonds travel to point of vision and look spectacular.

Another form of setting which would have created a different look is ‘bar’ setting:

The stones are slightly separated and there is more metal visible between them.

‘Pressure’ set would have also been possible and it is a process where the surface of the ring is pressured over the edges of the stones and again features more metal:

‘Channel’ set is yet another process using two rails of metal which hold the stones in place  – there is no metal between the stones – and allows open space around the stones giving the impression of the diamonds floating in a channel:

All of these have their own beauty and it ends up being purely a matter of choice.

I hope you enjoy the journey of this stunning commission and I look forward to being of assistance to you if you would like to talk about having a jewellery ‘make-over’.

Cheers for now

Nicholas
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