Tales about enchanted jewellery: Don’t you just love rubies?

Red, passionate and with a very special sparkle to them. These stones, actually more rare than diamonds and a kind of sapphire are considered special by many –including me. So, when I got hold of this fantastic large (almost 8 mm in diameter) round cut ruby from Mozambique, I felt inclined to produce something special, and so I did (well, I think at least). Here’s the somewhat lengthy process, reminding quite a lot of the Silver flames ring.

I started out with the bezel. It was important to me, that the brim to be pushed over the stone was fine silver, to ensure a snug and secure fit. However, I also wanted to be sure that the tall setting I wanted was sturdy enough to withstand quite a lot of pressure, and so I created an outer layer of 0,4 mm fine silver and shaped into a cone using my bezel block.

Now I made a preliminary sketch of where I approximately wanted to go. I often change the design as I work and so it also happened here.

Once I was sure it would fit the ruby, I created a smaller cone of 0,5 mm sterling silver to be fit inside the outer one for the shoulder to carry the stone on. After a lot of fitting, filing and refitting, it was perfect and I soldered the two cones together:

After grinding the shoulders to a perfect sloped fit, I started working the ring shank. When I had hammered the 4 mm thread and started cutting it, I decided to split one of the ends into two and cut off bits and pieces along the shank to give it it's "grown" nature. Of cause that also meant quite a lot if filing...

Then a thorough annealing (the silver was VERY hard from the planishing)

I spread the two ends and filed them roundish before shaping the ring shank, using the bezel as a guide and trying it on again and again as I worked.

Here the basic shape is finished.

Now I wanted to give it life, let it look almost grown, by adding the tube settings and balls of silver and gold. This part is enormously fiddly and so I forgot to take pictures along the way, but here I have finished all the soldering and filing and have just set the large ruby (sorry about the blurry picture).