Making of: Agate Mitsuro Ring

How it Started

Some designs present themselves to me in ways I don’t expect. This brown agate with those lovely bands through it had been sitting on my bench for a while when the cast branch and mitsuro band made their way next to it one day. All of their textures really compliment one another and it inspired me to create this piece celebrating those textural lines. Here is the process I went through to create this piece.

Soldering

Each piece I create starts with raw materials such as casting grain, sheet, or wire. Here are the pieces after they had been cast but weren’t realized yet into the ring that they’d become.

I use charcoal blocks and soldering pads to help hold my work while I’m soldering.

In this photo the face of the ring has been soldered onto the band. The bright white of the piece is what silver pieces look like after they’ve been pickled in an acid bath to remove the oxides and flux used in soldering.

Patination

After soldering and removing all oils from the surface of the piece, I painted on a dark patina with a blackening agent.

After patination, I polished the patina off of the high areas of the piece creating a lovely depth and contrast to bring out the textures in the various areas of the ring.

Setting the Stone

Here I’m about to start setting the agate stone into the ring. The ring is held in a vise with leather so that it doesn’t get marred up by the steel jaws of the vise.

Before setting the agate, I am testing the fit here to make sure that the stone sets nicely in the seat of the ring. Here I am using a piece of dental floss so that I can remove the agate easily. Usually, the bezel setting of a stone is a snug fit and if you don’t have floss or something else that you can use, to pop the stone out with, your stone could get stuck in a setting that may need adjustment.

In the image above you can see how the walls of the bezel surrounding the stone are just slightly pulled away from the stone. This is the bit of metal that I am going to push over the curve of the stone to hold it in place.

Finished Ring

Here is the ring finished in all of its linear textural beauty! You can see how the bezel is now snugly hugging the stone and how the patina accentuates the textures in the piece.

Thanks for taking the time to learn about how this piece was made!

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