My Wife’s Engagement Rings
This was the very start of unique 3d printed wearable jewelry for me. Being a designer it was hard for me not to do something like this. I would go to jewelry stores and look at their selection, there were a few I liked but there was always a compromise in something I was looking for along with outrageous price tags, I could not settle on anything. I researched and found out that I could order loose diamonds from James Allen, they posted detailed dimensions of the stones with all of the personally specs and I could ask a representative online that could walk me through the stone via video chat. It got me thinking, if I have the exact stone dimensions why can’t I design a ring to fit it.
I ended up dropping my first hint of engagement on my now wife. I drew up a few ring designs sketches and asked her to pick out the ones she liked. She picked out an early ideation sketch that had a princess diamond canted at 45 degrees to look like a diamond shape and not a square, the diamond was being held by the ring acting as big prongs. I knew she didn’t like princess diamonds in it typical configuration so I changed it because I can make whatever wanted and I’ve never seen it before!! I began to model up the ring with the diamond and her finger size in mind as criteria. After I got something rough in I started researching where I can get something 3d printed. I ended up finding Shapeways was the place for me to do my bidding. I created an creator account and uploaded my CAD model, and it gave me rough price and my jaw dropped on how affordable it is to make practice prints in plastic. Shapeways also gave me the rough price metals and precious metals…For that point on, I was 100 percent sold on doing this designing my own entirely custom ring thing!
I started doing some more research on how to properly make stone settings work and started printing out prototypes until I got it somewhat right. I bought a 50 pack of CZ stones at the similar size of the diamond I purchased to make sure make the ring can dependently hold a stone through daily abuse. I proposed with a prototype that was printed in silver and holding a CZ stone. Even though it was not the final she was blown away by the and results that were incepted and conceived to reality! Now that I wasn’t working on the ring in secret anymore, I was able to have her wear the ring to work and school and she pop out a few CZ stones in the process due to poor design in the concept. The addition of 2 prongs solved all my issues and also made the ring look more mature and elegant! After success having her wearing the prototype with the added prongs for a while with on issues I decided to print my final design! At this point I was still under budget including the price real diamond. I ordered the ring in two different materials so she could have the a couple favors to choose from. I set both rings with stones: the silver with the real diamond and the polished bronze with the CZ. This was one of the best projects I’ve ever worked on because it is so rewarding to make something from the heart for someone I love with all my heart!
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