Custom Wedding Rings

My wife and I aren't wealthy, shoot not even close, but we both have high standards and getting married in Switzerland this year really cost a bundle.. So what to do about wedding rings?

Solution: Make them myself!

My normal M.O. is to research extensively, design and then prototype and only then make the final product, well this time was no different, sure I'd made jewelry in the past but this was a huge step up, I mean I'm working with materials I can't afford to replace if I mess up!

An added complication was I had a fairly tight time frame plus the fact that I needed to school myself on some techniques I'd never used before, namely inlaying precious metal and setting gems. Needless to say, it was nervous work. I spent a month or so coming up with designs and honing them down to something do-able, then buying Ballas diamonds, Mokume Gane and Titanium, not to mention a few special tools.

Then I got to work cutting the ring blanks:

 Cutting the main features on a CNC mill:

Fitting the Mokume-Gane inlays:

Assembled components:

After all that, I finished them off with lots of sanding, acid etching and polishing. It was something close to 40hrs of cutting and finishing, which really gives me a new appreciation for custom made jewelry, I thought Mokune-Gane rings seemed over priced before but now they seem like a bargain!

Link to more photos and video--> OUR CUSTOM RINGS