Engagement/Wedding Rings

It is old news by the time that I am getting this post up that Kelcey and I are getting married!  As many of you know I collaborated with a jewelry making student at school to make silver and wood rings.  The wood in hers is pear from her parent's back yard.  In mine is walnut that my maternal grandfather cut down before he died.

This is Kelcey's ring right after I got it from the jeweler.  It is sitting on a piece of the pear wood that her mom sent me.  They had been planning on cutting down the tree, but actually did when I called and asked for a piece of the wood.

You can kind of see my process in this picture of the rejected pieces.  I cut slices of each type of wood thin enough to fit in the rings.  I dried these pieces in a toaster oven.  Next, I cut each in half.  Then I scribed a circle equal to the inner diameter of the rings and carved out the semi-circles with a carving chisel.

Then I fit the two halves back around the rings until they matched up perfectly.you can see the seem  in the light colored pear wood, but not in the walnut.

Next I cut away the extra wood with a straight chisel until it was almost flush with the metal and then filed the wood down with a jeweler's file until it was just recessed below the metal.

Here are the finished rings with the box I made to hold them.

This is a blurry picture of the breakfast in bed that I made Kelcey when I proposed.  Strawberry and cream cheese stuffed french toast and mimosas.