Gold Inlay Ring

Jewelry Discussion
1

Gold Inlay Ring

A customer emailed us at M2-Systems, a jpg of a ring he designed,
possibly in illustrator. He isn’t a jeweler but he certainly is a
talented artist. It was a beautiful image of a lion, yellow metal on a
white metal background. The pattern is composed of intricately
detailed sections of yellow depicting the lion’s head on a brightly
polished flat band of white. The outline of the image looked to be
emphasized with an antiqued or oxidized border. We can import his
artwork into ArtCam to make a 3D model and cast a white gold or
platinum band, but I’m not sure how to inlay the yellow gold into the
white. My first choice seems to be to recess the image into the band,
undercutting the walls of the recessed areas to hold the inlay and
hammering higher carat gold into the open spaces, and then filing it
flush with the band. If the white band was platinum, I suppose you
could safely melt gold into the spaces without worrying about melting
the design and then filing it back to flat again. Another way would be
to burnishing thin gold sheet into a less recessed outline of the
image, but I would think the detail is too intricate to do that
method. If anyone can offer any suggestions or has a special technique
regarding inlaying gold in gold, or even gold in platinum, it would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jesse

2

Jesse, Without seeing the design it’s hard to offer a specific
fabrication technique. It is quite feasible to model and cast the
white band with recesses, fill them with wax and then cast in the
yellow gold. Minor differences in melting points won’t cause problems
though I wouldn’t recommend casting platinum onto gold :wink: The inlay
must be mechanically interlocked, there won’t be a bond between the
different casts. If there is also detail in the yellow pieces life
becomes much more interesting. One possibility is to model and cast
the ‘inlay’, then placing this yellow casting in a rubber mold of the
entire ring (white and yellow parts), inject wax for the white parts
around the yellow casting.

Jeff Demand
http://www.aztec-net.com/~jdemand