Greetings Orchidians, I have a challenge repair and I’m deciding how
to proceed.
Customer has a ring with a piece of black coral inlay in it. There
are two parallel grooves in the face of the coral that had gold
"bars" in it to give the illusion that there were 3 separate pieces
of black coral in the ring. The bars have fallen out. Apparently this
was a design problem, because it so happens this customer has two of
these rings and it happened to both (she thought she lost the first
ring, bought another and found the first)
She would like the missing bars replaced, I’m not sure about using
glue on such a tiny piece of gold (very thin square wire is what was
there) not to mention directly on the face of the coral. There does
not appear to be any kind of undercut on the gold surround the coral
that the “bars” join.
I was thinking of creating an undercut with a small graver, creating
a bar to size with angled ends to fit in the undercut, curving the
bar and trying to straighten it in place. Does this sound reasonable?
Thanks!
Barb Baur