Dirty Shop

I was watching a you tube video last night. The vid showed a nice girl at the jewelers bench talking about custom design. Her microscope was filthy with dirty fingerprints all over it.
Lots of jewelers are messy and I always wonder how anyone can produce beautiful jewelry in a nasty dirty shop. When I do consulting work I feel like Gordon Ramsey in Kitchen Nightmares. "Clean this place up"

When you come to our shop the first thing you will notice is that our work area is in the window, so that people walking by can see us working.

When you come in the door we are right there. A lot of stores hide there jewelers and the work area. In most cases its because the jewelers are off site.

Our work area is clean and right in front of the whole world. Just like a great chef keeps his kitchen clean we keep our shop clean, Come watch us work we love the attention.

Personal project.

Trying some new render styles.










Amythist and emeralds are my favorite color combination. This render wont do the stones justice.

Celtic Knot work ring basics

Here are the basics when designing knot work bands.
Some knot work is continuous around the ring with no beginning or end. These are nice but often lack when used on rings because of the small size. Continuous knots sometimes look too much like braids.











Segmented knots are my favorites. This is more correct and stands out better on a ring or small jewelry. Segmented knots also allow for more intricate patterns like trefoils flowers etc.













Most knot work rings or pattern rings need a backing or base ring. There are two elements to the base, a deck (red) and rails (blue). Knot work rings and pattern rings can have either or both.











Here is a render of a simple continuous knot without rails or deck. These look very cool I have done these with pave diamonds too.












Here is a continuous knot with rails and a sandblasted deck. The sanded deck really makes the knot stand out. We can also antique the deck.













You can cut a knot into a simple band a Here is a segmented knot engraved or cut into a simple band.

















And here it is with antiquing. These styles relay need antiquing to show the contrast.












This is one where I used the customers initials to create a neat pattern. This is engraved with rails and antiquing.









This is a reverse cradle ring using almost all of the elements. The band is a raised knot on a deck without rails and the e ring has free knots that hold the side rails.










Here is a set of classic segmented knot bands. The ladies is scaled and diamonds are added.











This is a knot with and Indian R to represent the couple. Raised knot on a sanded deck with contrasting rails.










Here is knot work used in an unusual way. We wrapped the knot work around the prongs. Its very subtle but way cool.









One of my all time favorite sets. The customer designed the Knots and sent me drawings. The Gents band Is raised with contrasting rails. The ladies band is raised with no rails but the rails on the reverse cradle e ring match the gents when the rings are worn together.