Custom Made Jewelry Handcrafted –Silver Jewelry

The signet ring is a jewel of ancient origin, historically used by both women and men.

This is one of the few jewels that had a practical utility function, as it served as proof of identification, like today's digital signatures, in order to seal the letters with a wax seal. and legal acts (marriage, inheritance ...).

If the wearing of the signet ring meets the aesthetic and fashion today, precise rules governed the wearing of signet rings for the nobles during the Middle Ages.

The wearing of the signet ring changes according to the country, the sex and the time.

Here's how you find it, starting with a review of the fingers of your hand 

The small town of Magdalena de los Opalos is worth a visit, although it is a bit far from the city of Puerto Vallarta. Indeed, this town of 16,000 inhabitants is of a typical Mexican style, its very clean streets allow you to walk around the central square and the surrounding streets while enjoying the freshness that you cannot find in Puerto Vallarta. The many opal mines surrounding the city have made it a recognized place of exchange for this gem and the visit of the mines as well as the search for opals for leisure have made it an interesting tourist destination to spend a day or two there.

As part of my jewelry business, I use 3D printing for the creation of Castable masters for some of my jewelry. Mainly making unique and complex pieces for my clients, I need to quickly and faithfully print wax masters for our creations.

I started my work on 3D printing in 2015 with the purchase of a 1200 Project 3DS printer, an honest review of which is published here (in French). I then changed my printer, for a Draken 3D printer from the company 3DFacture which is also an SLA type 3D printer offering a larger printing surface than the 1200 and the freedom to manage the light exposure parameters at will, allowing me to work with resins more economical than those of 3DS and especially castable.

 Then, I now turned to a 3D printer, still SLA, but of a new type for me since printing from the bottom up, unlike the two previous printers which are of the Bottom-Up type.

Faced with all the existing chain maille weaves for making chains, used both for bracelets, necklaces and anklets, it's normal that you feel disoriented when you search for an internet purchase.

To find your way around, we offer you this guide which includes most of the chain maille weaves used for bracelets, chains and necklaces.

In the menu that follows, you can click on the model that interests you to go to the related chapter, or see our summary poster at the end of the article.

Lapis lazuli is a stone used for more than 7000 years in many artistic fields such as painting, sculpture, jewelery, ...

Its name of ultramarine blue is given to it since 5th century in Europe when one spoke about this rare and precious blue come from beyond the seas.

Its name comes from the Latin "lapis" which means "stone" and Arabic Andalusian "azul" itself from Persian "lasaward" which means "blue".

Here is a short summary about lapis lazuli and its geographical and historical journey :

Mexico is the world's largest producer of silver ore and a leading producer of silver jewelry.

This is why many wholesalers and suppliers of silver jewelry are in Mexico.

Silver metal is extracted as ores mixed with other rocks and ores and must be separated and refined in order to produce pure silver or 999 silver bullion.

This silver is then used for the manufacture of jewelry, to do this, it must be alloyed with other metals (usually copper) to obtain silver jewelry having a better mechanical resistance.

It is essential to know how to solder silver to make elaborate jewels.

However, in the majority of cases, when we talk about silver solder, it is an abuse of language : in reality we're doing a silver brazing.

In jewelry, we assemble silver coins by wetting them with silver solder. This silver solder will, by capillarity, run along the gap between the two parts and hold them together while cooling.

We invite you to discover this process in photos, by the work of a designer making silver jewelry.

To solder silver, it takes two pieces in pure silver (925 or 950 in the case of this example) and silver solder.

It's also necessary to use a liquid facilitating the solder, it cleans the areas of solder and avoids the oxidation of the latter, we generally use the Borax.

Silver solder is an alloy of silver and copper that has a lower melting temperature than the pure silver we are trying to solder. It's less pure silver than the sterling silver we work.

Hallmark of a jewel or a precious metal object (gold, silver or platinum) is the official guarantee of the title (its degree of purity) of the considered metal.

These precious metals have common characteristics : they're very resistant to oxidation, they have an incomparable brilliance, and above all they are ductile, malleable.

Therefore, it's necessary to combine them with other metals in order to increase their mechanical strength and to be able to use them in the form of jewels or pieces of silverware.

Silver is commonly alloyed with copper; and gold with zinc, nickel, copper, or silver. It's in order to find your way among this range of precious alloys that hallmarks have appeared. Hallmarks are a guarantee of the title of the jewel's metal or object of art.

We usually recognize sterling silver by testing it with acid.

Many jewels are sold claiming to be sterling silver but are fake jewels, namely an economical 925 silver plated metal.

A popular method for testing silver jewelry is that of the touchstone.

Many women with a silver jewelry collection also have a collection of silver chains and bracelets broken or damaged to continue wearing them. The advantage of solid silver jewelry is that they never lose the metal value that composes them.

It's easy to melt these jewelry scraps into a silver nugget that can be resold or reused to make a new silver jewelry at a lower cost.

Biker clubs always have their emblem, worn as well on their leather jacket, tattooed on the body or worn proudly on a jewel.

In this case, this is a silver biker ring that receives the logo of the club, the sponsor belonging to a motorcycle club.

Their emblem depicts a custom pirate style skull with crossbones and a pirate headband on one of the skull's orbits.

The Indians of pre-Columbian America are known for their religious artifacts, sculptures and turquoise jewelry.

It is believed that it was the Toltecs who developed and controlled the turquoise stone trade in the area that was later to become Mexico.

All Amerindian civilizations have either rubbed shoulders with each other, or succeeded one another, so that there have been enormous influences from one to the other of these civilizations.

Which, throughout Mesoamerica, lead to the manufacture of jewelery, works of art. craftsmanship using turquoise, a stone considered precious by the Aztecs, Mayans and Toltecs, who valued it more than gold.

Read this interesting article on cultural exchanges between Amerindian civilizations.