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Custom Design can take many directions. One of the fastest and most cost effective is to choose a mounting from one of our design catalogs, such as Stuller Settings or Overnight Mountings. These are usually available overnight and there are over 7000 to choose from.
If none of these work, we can create your own design from scratch. We start with a counter sketch, then a wax model is painstakingly carved by hand, and presented for your approval. Next, your jewelry is cast in the metal of your choice using the lost wax method. Gemstones are set and the piece is polished to perfection. |
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Key Benefits
- A custom design is your own. It is an expression of your ideas and your creativity.
- You end up with a truly one of a kind piece that no one else will have.
- A custom design has complete flexibility to create beautiful jewelry in the metal(s) and gemstone(s) of your choice.
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Lost Wax Casting
Lost-wax casting is a very old concept. It was used by the Mayan Indians centuries ago to produce the highly intricate gold objects we so admire in museum collections. The same process, with many technical improvements, is used today to produce almost every piece of jewelry manufactured on a large scale in the United States. Because of its simplicity, it is the perfect way of producing, from a single original model, the artist's handiwork exactly the way the artist created it. Each reproduction is cast from a mold of the original.
The artist or model-maker carves a wax model, which is set into a metal container; plaster is poured in until it completely covers the wax model. When the plaster has set, the container is placed in a special oven until the wax flows out through a channel in the plaster. All that is left of the model is a cavity bearing an exact imprint of the original. Into this cavity, molten metal is shot, usually by centrifugal force; when the metal sets, the plaster is washed away and the model-now transformed into the permanence of metal-remains. It is then filed and polished until it is even more perfect than the wax had been, and from this metal model, a rubber mold is made. The metal original is set aside; molten wax is injected into the cavity of the rubber mold and the entire process is repeated, only now an unlimited number of wax reproductions can be cast in metal.
With a custom ring for one of our customers, the making of a rubber mold is not done. The carved wax provides a one shot opportunity to cast it right in the jewelry metal of choice. This way, the customer truly has a one of a kind original. A piece to be enjoyed for a lifetime. |
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