Saturday, August 7, 2010

Restoration and Repair


The story behind these rings says true love! The couple that that belong to were married shortly after high school. They took their senior rings, had them melted them down to make their wedding bands.
The rings had been worn with such love and devotion until they could not longer be worn. 

 One was so misshapen that it was not wearable and the other was cut off the finger. They set idle for years waiting to be restored. Mrs. Vickie had received another beautiful wedding set, but this ring had knit itself to her heart. She wanted it back and she wanted her honey to have his back too, so she snuck them out of their normal storage place and brought into my little shoppe for some TLC!
The first thing I did was to take her husband's ring and round it out. The quality of the gold and the workmanship of the original rings are wonderful! The person who made them did an excellent job. They were made to last forever and a day!... just like their marriage.  After rounding it out, I took out as many scratches and evidence of great wear that was possible. Then I put a high polish on it to make it shine like new! Vickie could hardly wait, she came into the shoppe to see it before I had done any work on her ring at all.
You can still see some of the wear on the rings. I did not want to take any more metal off of the rings than what was necessary. In school we are taught to always respect the clients gold and not to be overly aggressive when doing this type of work. We are to let the piece wear the character of it's life in it's best light.
I hope her honey is surprised by her generous gesture and pleased with my work. I look forward to getting to know Mrs. Vickie better in the future.
Melissa, thank you so much for the referral!