Remodelling Jewellery: White Sapphire Ring

Becca Williams
Jun 28
3 min read

Transforming old gold jewellery into a new, handmade white sapphire and 14ct gold ring

This client bought me some incredibly sentimental pieces of jewellery, including a ring that had been left to her by her husband. They represented a lifetime of travels together, collecting souvenirs and exploring the world.

A pile of old gold jewellery waiting. to be remade

The client's jewellery collection

We separated all the pieces out into the various carats of gold and looked at all the stones carefully. We were really taken by a gorgeous white sapphire purchased in India. It's got a golden brown inclusion in it that's just beautiful when it catches the light.

The sapphire is over 7mm in diameter, so it's a really big stone, the equivalent of a 1.25-1.5ct diamond. It was originally in a very lightweight ring, but we wanted to build something more structural around it.

After chatting for a while, we decided that the most important thing was to capture a memory of the signet ring. So we focused on using the strong diagonal lines and textures from that design to inform the new ring.

The client also had a narrow, very light 22ct gold wedding ring which had belonged to her mother. We opted to include this in the new ring but to keep it distinct by retaining the 22ct gold colour.

Handmade ring design

We sketched up this (which doesn't look like much!) but I converted it into a more technical drawing to give the client the idea of how the final ring would look. Part of it will be hammered, and this hammered texture will fade away as it moves around the ring.

Making a custom carat of gold

The most important piece to include in this ring was the 9ct gold signet ring. However, the client also had several pieces of 22ct and 18 karat gold. She wanted to wanted to mix them all to avoid the significant cost of adding new, fresh gold to bring all the material up to an 18ct or 22ct standard.

Instead we aimed for 14ct overall. 14ct gold is 58.5% gold, with the other part of the percentage being made up by silver and copper. It's a softly warm yellow colour, which I'm actually coming to appreciate more the more I work with it. It's not very common in the UK but is widely used in Europe and America. The amount of people now buying jewellery abroad means that I'm increasingly being asked to make things like wedding rings in 14ct gold to match engagement rings that have come from overseas. I usually alloy this 14ct gold myself, so I'm very comfortable with the maths involved in getting the alloy correct.

Melting down the gold

I removed all the stones from the old jewelry and began the process of hand making by melting the majority of the gold into one giant 14ct gold loaf. I rolled this out in my rolling mill into a long, wide rectangle. The small 22ct gold ring was melted next into a neat little ball of metal.

Hand making the ring

I drew the shape of the triangular foundation of the ring onto the 14ct gold and cut that out to form the base shape of the ring. The rest of the 14ct gold went back into the melting pot so that I could create an even smaller piece of sheet, which would eventually come to form the setting for the white Sapphire.

I started off texturing the ring while it was flat, but added even more depth to the hammer marks once ring ring was curved up into a round. When I had the basic shape I added the 22ct stripe to the top edge and filed it down to match the rest of the surface.

The setting was made up then soldered into place before I cut away a circular section at the back to neaten up the structure of the setting. After a through polish the ring made the trip to Birmingham Assay Office for hallmarking.

When it came back I set the sapphire, tidied everything up and gave it another polish, ready for collection. The final piece is a real statement. It was lovely to work on something so bold and chunky. The client loved it and is already wearing and enjoying it.