Once you receive your engagement ring you may waste hours staring at it while dreaming about a wedding ring and how it should fit. There are incredible engagement ring styles being made today and some of them come with wonderful matching wedding rings but, many don’t. I’ve seen couples travel from jewelry store to jewelry store in search of a perfect wedding band only to be disappointed when they realize that nothing fits properly with their ring. When they stumble upon a jeweler that can provide a custom designed wedding band they find it hard to make a choice. This is largely due to the jewelers inability to provide a life-like sample or illustration of how the ring is going to look when its finished. Most people have a hard time visualizing conceptual items like custom jewelry since they don’t know what to expect and also since the design is in the jeweler’s mind not theirs.

An experienced and professional custom jeweler will have the skills needed to provide a detailed account of how your ring will look. In addition, he/she should be a excellent communicator while assessing your needs and transferring those needs in to the actual jewelry design. Without proper translation of your wants and desires the ring may not be everything you dreamed of and a excellent custom jeweler will be with you this. Underneath line is this…Fantastic wedding rings are made not by fantastic jewelers but also fantastic communicators. When selecting a craftsman to make your wedding ring, examine the person’s portfolio of previous work, but also take note of how you both work together. If you have excellent synergy and communicate well together then you’ll have a better chance of getting an incredible wedding ring that you’ll be pleased with.

Another valuable wavering is the person doing the assembly of your custom wedding ring; the person crafty your ring may not be the person making it. The designer that you work with could do a wonderful job making a concept for your item but the jeweler making it could be a poor craftsman or terrible interpreter of your designer’s concept. If the designer isn’t the person making your ring then you should get a feel for how the two work together. Question to meet the craftsman and have a establishment discussion to determine if everyone is on the same page. While we are on the subject of the craftsman, make sure that the jeweler really assembling the ring can provide examples of his craftsmanship. A jeweler without adequate experience in custom jewelry design may set diamonds poorly or weld metal improperly. This can result in a finished product that doesn’t look excellent or you could receive a ring with a history of problems like marble loss from its setting. There are credentials that help determine how qualified a jeweler is at making custom jewelry. One such credential is the Jewelers of America (JA) Master Jeweler program. A person that is certified by JA to be a “Master Jeweler” is certainly the most qualified person for the job and you can be rest poised that he has been tested in all areas of jewelry making.

The next thing you should be with you is how the jewelry is really made. When making custom jewelry, the designer will of course first make a concept for you. Once you feel comfortable with the design a counter sketch or illustration is given to a model maker along with your ring. The model maker will carve a wax prototype of your prospective wedding ring design based on these counter sketches. This model maker should take in account all the design elements that are valuable to you while providing a ring that best compliments your engagement ring and its specific features. It’s permanently a really excellent thing when a model maker can identify things about your engagement ring that make it special. He/she can then re-make those special features in your design; this will make the two rings look like they were made for each other from the start. Special features can include methods of diamond setting, precious metal types, profiles, heights, widths, etc. The wax prototype should be used for two purposes, the first is a sample that you can try on or rest next to your engagement ring. This prototype will be very useful since it will give you a very excellent thought of how the wedding band will look when it is finished. If you’re not pleased with the original design or you want to make changes it shouldn’t be a conundrum since the ring isn’t made yet, it’s just a wax model.

After the appropriate changes are made and you approve the final prototype, a jeweler will make mold of the wax. The prototype wax is positioned in a flask and filled with plaster. Once the plaster hardens, the flask is positioned in an oven and the wax model is burned out of the flask leaving a cavity in the exact impression of your design. The flask is then injected with molten metal and once the metal cools the plaster is kaput away leaving you with a casting of the jewelry design. This casting is filed, polished and then the final assembly process starts.

Another thing to look for is the use of new technologies when making your custom wedding ring design. The best model of this is 3D Computer Aided Design or otherwise known as CAD design. Recent advances in this arena have allowed for incredible possibilities when crafty jewelry. CAD software is used to make a computer model of the design and then is sent to a CNC (computer mathematical hegemony) mill that cuts the wax in a very precise manner. The benefit of CAD design is the capability to make very precise jewelry designs that are for more accurate than a hand-carved wax model. In the end, the precision of the CAD wax allows for much more intricate design capabilities and also finer quality assembly. The CAD models can also be rendered using graphical interfaces such as Flamingo3D, which use both raytracing and radiosity to make a life-like illustration of the design. This computer rendering is far more useful in depicting your design then a drawing scribbled on scratch paper.

Currently, only a handful of jewelers are using 3D CAD design technology and this is due to the high cost of the software, equipment, and training. You should but, check with your local jeweler or do an Internet search to see who is available to use this technology. Whenever possible, choose the person that employs the use of 3D CAD since you’ll get a better quality product. You can learn more about this process and viewed at http://www.rokstok.com. Keep in mind that not all jewelers using 3D CAD are automatically qualified to make your wedding ring. You still need to qualify them just as you would a person that is using traditional techniques to make your item. In the end, the best way to go about your design is to screen the people making your item and assess their communication skills to determine if they be with you your needs.