You’re Not Done Yet!
Tom Weishaar
1. I just completed this semi-mount and sent it to the store manager so that it could be put on display and hopefully sold during the holiday season. However, the manager had other plans. The next day the mounting came back to me with a note that said: “This ring would sell better if you decorated the shank with hand engraving”. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the world’s best engraver, but I do enjoy it and I thought you might like to follow along as I engrave the shank.
2. I begin all my engraving projects by first cutting what I call the frame lines. This ring’s shank is cast from 90/10 platinum iridium. It measures 4mm wide near the diamonds and tapers to 3mm at the bottom. I’m using a small onglette or knife graver to cut lines ½ mm in from the ring’s edges. The face of the graver has a 55° angle, which is rather shallow, and pushes easily through the platinum. Also, a touch of cutting oil helps the graver to slide through the sticky platinum.
3. After the frame lines have been cut I like to find the bottom center of the ring and mark it with a scriber. I always cut a flower at the bottom of the shank so I like to make sure I leave space for it.
4. I’m going to engrave a pattern I call praying hands on the shank. For this I need to mark off a series of spaces using my dividers. The length of each space is equal to the width of the space. In essence I’m marking off spaces that will become squares.
5. I begin each section the same way. I’m working from the top of the ring toward the bottom. I start halfway into my square and make a cut down to the point that I made with the divider. I usually make this cut in two passes and the final pass is fairly deep. I like to use Glensteel gravers, from G.R.S. These gravers are hard without being brittle so the tips stay sharp and don’t chip as frequently. The graver’s face and sides are polished so I will not have to come back and recut my work.
6. The next series of cuts creates an inverted V. I begin at my divider point and make two 45° cuts out toward my frame lines. These cuts are again angled down toward the bottom of the ring. I like to lay the graver down so the leading edge of the cut is straight down and the lower edge of the cut is beveled downward. I believe this is called making a shading cut.
7. In this picture it is easy to see the triangle patterns I cut into the shank. I’ve switched over to using a flat graver for these next few cuts. This next cut is made just above the inverted V. I’m simply plunging the graver into the metal about ½ mm deep. Just leave the raised chip of metal for now as the next cut will take care of it.
8. After I made all of the first cuts, I turned the ring around and made a second cut into the first. This removed the small chip of metal from the first cut. I call this pattern praying hands and if you’ll hold your hands, fingers and thumbs together, as though you are praying, then you will see that the two cuts I just made define the wrists of your hands. This is my favorite pattern to cut and since I live in the Bible Belt, my customers like it also.
You're Not Done Yet continued
