This project began with a customer who approached me with the idea of duplicating a ring he had seen in the 1980's television series, Magnum, P.I.  He provided me with the image he created (seen to the right), an image scanned from a poster, another black & white picture of the original ring and after several telephone conversations describing angles, bevels and sizes I was ready to begin carving the wax model.

I had never met this customer face to face, but with the drawings and images he supplied, I was able to begin to take his ideas and turn them into this wax model.

After viewing this wax model, the customer had some unique ideas as to how the outer bezel should appear.  He wanted the angle of the bezel's bevel to be steepest at the left and right sides of the cross and then decrease as it reached the top and bottom.

I decided to go ahead and make the casting using the wax model the way it was and make any necessary changes to the angle of bevel in the gold casting during finishing.

Here, you see the customer's concept of the angles of the bevel worked out in gold.

There were a few minor flaws in this casting, so I scrapped this attempt and re-cast the ring.  After all, I am a perfectionist.

This new casting went much better than the phase 3 casting.  The shrinkage porosity flaws visible in the first cast are non-existent here.

This almost looks too pretty to enamel.

After re-casting, enameling and finishing, this ring turned out to be a truely unique piece of jewelry.  Even though I was making a copy of a ring my customer had seen on television, this ring has his own touches that make it personal and unique.

The hallmark in my craft is the ability to understand what my customers want and turn their ideas into reality.

Below is one more custom design in 14K yellow and white gold that was completed from a customers brief description.

Baseball Pendant