Ever since I cast the lily ring for my then girlfriend I knew that I wanted to make her engagement ring as well. The primary appeal of a homemade engagement ring is that it is just more special when you make it yourself, rather going to the store and picking something out and giving it to your girlfriend. You spent time designing it, carving it, thinking about it, and making it uniquely just for her, which is something I am confident in saying that just about any woman would love. Besides driving your woman crazy, as a bonus it makes everyone else (family/friends) very impressed and eliminates any doubt that you really do love her after all. And finally as always there is the satisfaction of doing something challenging that not many people even think about doing.

Luckily for me I had a little bit of experience in casting from other projects when I started researching for this project, without that I may have not attempted it because there is so little information on the subject. I hope this article will give enough information that anyone that is good with their hands can make their own. Note that I only carved the ring, I had a smith cast the ring for me. I would have loved to build all of the equipment to get professional casting results but I simply didn’t have the time. Getting your carving cast by a professional is surprisingly easy and affordable. In fact you can save several hundred dollars over buying a pre-made band by making it yourself. You can also have a jeweler do the more tricky bits like setting the stone. The place I bought my stone from set it for free after I had the ring cast.

Because the ring design influences the tools that you will need to carve it the design should be at least roughly defined first. Something that I strongly suggest is looking at rings with your potential fiance to get to know what she likes, then you can take the best parts of all the rings she likes and combine them into the ultimate amazing custom ring. The surprise factor that you lose by allowing her to see that you intend to ask her to marry you will be compensated by the surprise that you made her a ring that hits all her check marks. In my case my fiance really liked a rings with a cathedral setting, a ring that had a split shank, princess cut diamonds, and the stone sitting low in the ring. Those were all features found on different rings, and I couldn’t find a single ring that had all of those features together, but with a little creativity it wasn’t hard to come up with a ring that had them all.

Before you can really make a detailed design of the ring it is best to have the stone(s) that you will use so you know their exact size and can design the ring to fit them. I sketched the ring first then made a model of it using the dimensions of the diamond in solidworks. If you don’t have solidworks a good alternative is to draw the ring to scale on graph paper about 10 times the size that it will be making sure that the finger hole is to scale. Then once you sketch the rest of the ring, you can measure the size of any feature then divide the measurement by 10 to check the measurements on your carved ring. You can also draw the ring 1:1 scale and do everything by eye. I’ve found that the human eye can hold remarkable tolerances when you just “eyeball it.” I made drawings of the front, side, top, and an auxiliary view of the split on the cathedral. I printed out some drawings 1:1 scale so I could lay my carving on them to make sure that it was correct. Some general design tips:

-Try to avoid unnecessarily thick or large solid features, gold is extremely expensive so if possible hollow out thick parts from underneath etc.
-Conversely try to avoid super thin features. The hardest part of designing the ring for me was finding a balance between too thin and too thick. I finally decided on ~.050” square for the prongs and .075” x .050” for the band was a good thickness.
-Make sure that there is enough support for the prongs holding the diamond. My prongs could be a little thinner because they were supported by the cathedral portion of the ring. Had they not been supported I would have to have made them .075” thick at least.
-It is worth taking your design by a jeweler to see what they think/if they have any suggestions. The place I bought my stone from was happy to check out my design and give me tips for free - It generates a lot of interest among jewelers when you say you are making an engagement ring yourself.

The next thing to do was to order the tools. I really didn’t use many tools, and I ordered them all from www.contenti.com

-wax gloss
-economy loupe
-stone holder
-wax burrs
-ring tube assortment

I already had the following tools but their equivalent can be gotten from contenti

-economy needle files
-exacto knife (#11 blade)
-wax carvers

Other tools I had that werent from contenti
-dial calipers (somewhat optional but extremely helpful)
-a compass used as dividers
-hacksaw
-a dremel for the wax burrs (buy one! So useful for tons of stuff!)

Finally I also used a 1/2” endmill in my drill press to get a nice flat surface cut on the top of the ring as well as a large (5/8”) reamer misused to shape the side (can be done with a file so they are completely optional, explained later).

Depending on the shape and design of your ring you may need different wax cutters or files etc - just use good judgement, the tools are so cheap in relation to the overall cost of a ring that its well worth getting a tool you might need.

Once you have your tools and design its time to get to work. The process varies depending on the design of the ring, but for me it went something like this:

Building

Here is a time lapse video of me carving my ring - it is sped up about 180 times normal speed and has some of the repetitive sections cut out.

First I cut off a slice of the ring tube (I used green which is the hardest - I had issues with blue wax breaking) slightly wider than the thickness of the rings widest point. I first marked the cut on the tube by tracing a line all around the tube with the compass set to the correct width. Then carefully cut the slice off.

Next I brought the piece down to the correct thickness. I used an endmill in my drill press but this can easily be done with a wide flat file. If you don’t know what an endmill is its probably best to use a file. The advantage to the endmill is that it gives a nice constant thickness without a lot of effort. You can see the piece brought down to thickness in the image below.

Now the slice has to have the hole opened up to the correct size. I actually bored the hole out in a mill (Learn about boring here)
once again if you don’t have a mill it is best to just get one of these tools, they are cheap and ensure that your ring is the correct size (extremely important). You basically twist it into the ring tube cutting away wax until you reach the mark that indicates the correct ring size has been cut. If you have calipers I would double check the inside diameter to make sure it is the correct size before proceeding. If you don’t have calipers I would print out a ring size chart to scale and lay the ring on it to make sure it matches the right size.

Next using my calipers and a straight edge and the compass I traced lines onto the wax blank which matched the outline of the ring (from the front). This is where I used a large reamer in my drill press to remove a lot of wax quickly cutting just shy of the traced lines.

I used needle files to carefully file up to the traced lines.

Now that I had the profile cut I made the tops of the prongs. I used an exacto knife then needle files to bring them closer to their final shape. I didn’t cut the indentation into them that will hold the corners of the diamond though. Its also very important that you make the prongs taller than necessary so that the stone can be set. Then I cut the 45 degree channels into the side of the ring (see picture). I used an exacto knife initially then a 45 degree side of a triangle needle file to precisely bring it to shape.

The next step was to the excess wax away from the band. I traced two lines around the pattern that were the width of the band using the compass set to the correct width. I did this by resting the pencil side against the outside of the ring and dragging the sharp tip along the wax. I then used a wax burr in the dremel to cut away most of the wax then used a needle file to cut up to the traced lines.

I put tape on the newly cut band to protect it from files and exacto blades while I cut the area under the prongs and cathedral area. I mainly used an exacto knife by eye then used my smallest file to clean up the cut area. In order to precisely make the prongs I needed to fit them to the diamond, so I carefully cut the channels into the tops of the prong to fit the diamond. I did this very carefully with an exacto knife, measuring every cut with my calipers and testing with the diamond when I was close. This step is where the stone holder comes in handy.

I cut the bottom side of the cathedral using an exacto knife then cleaned up the cut with a flat needle file. I then cut the inside of the cathedral the same way. Its really all about being careful and checking often to make sure the ring is looking the way it should. I then cut the seat for the stone. This involves carefully carving away an angles surface below the top of the prongs that matches the diamond, then filing it smooth, obviously checking to make sure the stone fits well.

Finally I carefully went over the whole ring with my finest file making sure everything was smooth and the correct size. I checked every measurement with my calipers and took off any necessary wax.

I used a piece of a woman's stocking to polish the finished ring, then finally went over the whole ring with a cloth dampened with the wax gloss. Remember that anything you can see on the wax will show up in the final ring so take your time.

Once I had the ring done I packaged it up and sent it to a jeweler that did small orders. They are called jcco casting the cost is pretty cheap - you can look yourself but it was about $5 to cast and polish the ring and then the cost of gold. So total it was less than $100 for them to do the whole thing. If you read my article about my centrifuge casting you saw that I attached a sprue to the wax pattern. They will do it for you for $1 so I opted to let them do that as well. Their site has all the information you need to send them your ring just make sure you ask for them to email you a quote first.

There are many other places that will cast a single ring, I chose jcco because they were the most up front about their prices - no one else would even tell me anything without me first sending them the ring which I didn’t have time to do.
I got the ring back about 2 weeks after I sent it in, the polish on it was fantastic. took it to the jeweler that night who set the stone in less than an hour. The last step is to propose! Who can say no to an amazing home made ring?

Closing Remarks:
Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get it right the first time. I made three rings before I had one that I was happy with. The key is to take your time and think about the best way to remove the wax. And be gentle! I broke two of the 4 rings I made on almost the last step...