This is a special project which we recently completed for a Denver jewelry designer. The designer had a customer who frequently traveled to Africa. His customer wanted a ring which symbolized his love for the African continent. He wanted to use faceted stones which are from Africa. He chose Tanzanite and Tsavorite. He also wanted those stones surrounded by Black Jade. I assisted the jewelry designer in incorporating the stones with his customer's vision of using the shape of Africa. The ring was designed with a computer aided CAD system to assure that the sizes and thicknesses of the stones were proportioned correctly and made a very wearable ring. After the ring was made and the faceted stones were sent in gold bezels. I inlaid solid pieces of Black Jade around the bezels and within the shape of Africa by carving triangular holes so that the Black Jade sections fit down over the bezels and fit the shape of the African coastline very tightly. This is a very time-consuming process but the final result made the customer very happy.

This ring was specially designed by the goldsmith and needed 13 pieces of matching Opal inlaid in them. The ring on the left later had a faceted stone mounted in the opening.

A wedge shaped area on the left side of the ring was inlaid with lapis to look like a lake. The sky area was inlaid with sleeping beauty type turquoise. The sun is a yellow sapphire. The sapphire is not set with a gold tube, instead it was inserted from the back and is held in place with a bezel of turquoise, so  to speak, at the top. A piece of gold tubing was inserted into the back of the turquoise to hold the yellow sapphire in place and to allow it to be cleaned from the back.

This is a platinum ring which needed the channels deepened and then inlaid with black onyx on each side 360’ around the ring. This is done with just 2 pieces of onyx on each side so that there will be only 2 faint seams on each side.

This ring has been inlaid with alternating sections of opal, black onyx and lapis.

This is a pretty straight forward lapis inlay on the arch of the ring.

This ring is an example of how a material such as Silicon can be inlaid. Silicon is the material that  silicon computer chips are made from. Silicon has a very metallic silvery look. Many jewelry buyers who have jobs in high-tech fields like the idea of having silicon in their ring because it is and attractive material and also makes for a great conversation piece.

This is an Opal inlay that illustrates how much a material, such as Opal, can enhance a rather simple but elegant ring design.

This is an example of a complex inlay. The inlay channel is very narrow, slightly over 1mm. The channel arches high over the ring and also has an “S” curve as you can see. This inlay must be done in more than one piece. Although some cutters may use several sections, we always like to keep the number of pieces to the absolute minimum. In this case we used 3 pieces. It could be done with 2 pieces but then you would have a “joint” in the top center where it is most visible and we don’t want that. Therefore, we use one nice piece across the top and have a joint half way down each side. We join the pieces as closely as possible so that the glue line is barely visible.

The jeweler provided me with a wax model of how he wanted the lapis inlay to be sculptured.

This is a beautiful pin with a pearl at the top and a diamond mounted near the lower end. The piece required multiple sections of Black Jade inlay running down the center from the pearl to the diamond. Because the pearl and the diamond are raised above the level of the Black Jade it requires special techniques and extra time to get the Black Jade inlays perfectly flush with the gold, but it can be done.

These are 2 artfully designed rings which have been inlaid with black jade nestled directly against the diamonds. In cases such as this, it is often best to also polish a small bevel on the black jade where it meets the diamond, since the diamond girdle is below the level of the black jade.

This is an example of a ring inlaid with black jade with a diamond that has been hammer set flush with the surface of the gold. In cases such as this it is important to keep the level of the black jade flat and continuous with the shape of the ring.

This is a ring with a tapered baguette diamond which is mounted with the table of the diamond just slightly below the level of the surrounding gold. The black jade is inlaid flush with the surface of the gold and is flat on top. The ends of the black jade which meet the diamond have polished bevels on them which slope to meet the girdles of the diamond.

The diamond and gold tube were already soldered in place in this ring. The jeweler wanted it inlaid with Lapis. We were able to inlay the Lapis by cutting the hole first and inserting the Lapis down and around the center diamond and still fitting the stone tightly without glue lines showing.

Inlays: We guarantee our inlays to stay in for a minimum of a year. That will depend to some extent upon how the consumer treats their jewelry. If it is obvious that the consumer was abusive to the piece of jewelry then we cannot be held to the one year time frame. I have seen pieces that were destroyed in less than a week.

We us a high quality epoxy and our average inlay stays in place for many years.

* We cannot give our usual one year guarantee on inlays if the back of the inlay area is "open" and exposed to the finger. It has been found that perspiration breaks down epoxy fairly rapidly. It is best to solder a metal plate in the back of the inlay area before shipping it to us.

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