JBrooksDesigns

Jewelry Designer and Crafter Specializing in Engagement Rings and Wedding Bands. Custom Commissions by Request.

[brooksdesigns]

This piece is set and finished. Took a while, but it looks great and I'm pleased with how it's come out. There's certainly some spots I'd like to change up in the future, but for a first draft prototype, it's fine.

[brooksdesigns]

Tried getting some pictures of this piece from the microscope. I'd like to get a real camera for it; this is the best view of the piece.

I'm pleased with how it's coming together so far. But I don't think I'll be having the full-sized hole for the bail wire printed. It made that part of the piece really fragile. Meanwhile, the smaller pre-tapped hole printed in the pendant itself was actually really nice to work with.

Tomorrow should be pave for the bail, cleanup, and hopefully getting a chain made for it.

[brooksdesigns]

The piece I was working on yesterday didn't work out (too thin for pave), but I was able to get this piece into a good place. I really love the contrast between the sapphire and the silver/czs

[brooksdesigns]

Filigree Basket Round 1

Back from vacation and finally getting around to examining/working with the pieces I had ordered to be 3d printed and cast. Overall I'm pretty pleased with the quality of the parts, though of course I'll need to do more iteration. This first piece is beautiful, but I think it's too delicate to last very long under daily wear.

A little prepolish done and time for soldering. Here's hoping the fiddly bits don't melt. I'm just using paste solder for this, so it should be fine.

Soldering went smooth. It appears to have seated well and we should be good to move on to the pickle, then setting and final polishing. That'll be tomorrow though. It's nearly 3 AM, and that's late even for me.

I'll probably attempt to sell these pieces once they're finished. I won't need them sitting around, and I'm going to be doing better version of them as the design gets developed, so may as well get what I can out of them.

[sosuperawesome]

Claw Ring Set // Skadi

[brooksdesigns]

It's been a million years since I posted here. Life hasn't been conducive to working on jewelry for a bit. However! That should be changing now, and I want to get to working and posting regularly. I've got access to good CAD software again, so I can get back to a familiar workflow, and the first set of printed and cast pieces should be arriving by the end of the month.

In the mean time, I've got a new work bench to build, a bunch of new equipment to get situated, and some work to planned. Hopefully I'll have a good number of pieces for sale by the end of the year 🤞

[brooksdesigns]

First up for planned projects, my wife has a spinner/fidget ring that has been giving her skin issues, so I want to make a replacement, probably in silver. Probably something that could have easily been done by hand, but also very fun to model, so here we go:

[brooksdesigns]

It's been a million years since I posted here. Life hasn't been conducive to working on jewelry for a bit. However! That should be changing now, and I want to get to working and posting regularly. I've got access to good CAD software again, so I can get back to a familiar workflow, and the first set of printed and cast pieces should be arriving by the end of the month.

In the mean time, I've got a new work bench to build, a bunch of new equipment to get situated, and some work to planned. Hopefully I'll have a good number of pieces for sale by the end of the year 🤞

[brooksdesigns]

Wife’s Engagement Ring and Eternity Band together and sparkling!

[brooksdesigns]

Wife’s Eternity Wedding Band complete and shining!

[brooksdesigns]

The wife's wedding band is complete!

Doing the layout was probably my favorite part of this project. The setting definitely got a bit tedious after a while 😅

But it's finished! It looks great! On to the next thing!

[brooksdesigns]

Starting a new (hopefully quick) project tonight. My wife wants a wedding band to match her recently completed ring, and I need a break from DnD stuff or my brain will explode. So here we are: a piece of wire cut and ready to be formed into a ring.

Soldering time!

Band closed, trued up, sized, and polished. Ready to be mounted up for setting.

The setting is coming along nicely. I got a little under half way finished tonight. This is my second time attempting a castle setting with these pave and it's going much faster/better than last time. I spent a lot more time cleaning up the seats before starting setting this time and it's helped a lot.

I do need to get better with my dividers though. I learned to do my layout with calipers when I first learned to set, and my layout with dividers is still significantly less accurate. I was expecting to get 42 stones in this ring, but after layout I was only going to be putting in 39. All that extra space is split out amongst the gaps between all the stones, so it doesn't look too off, but I would still rather get precisely what I'd calculated out.

Oh well, we'll get there eventually.

[brooksdesigns]

On to the next thing. Working on a hex halo pendant.

Not certain if I'll be able to get the pave in there around the center stone. The measurements say yes, but my eyes are in doubt. We shall see I suppose.

[brooksdesigns]

My wife showing off her new ring!

[brooksdesigns]

The wife is pleased.

[brooksdesigns]

Setting the pave on the halo has begun... (I say, halfway through the process because I forgot to take a picture earlier)

Pave set! Final polishing done!

The next post should include a finished piece! 🤞🤞

[brooksdesigns]

Getting started on the pave for the band. I've decided I'm going to go ahead and do (my best attempt at) castle setting these stones.

So far so good, though this setting style is a lot more work than I thought, so it's slow going.

One side done, time for the other. The wife has seen and enthusiastically approved this side, so that's wonderful.

Both sides done now, time to prepare the seats for the stuff on the crown. Just waiting for the Jett Set to firm up now...

The prongs are cut and cleaned up, the side walls have been bright cut and prepped. Now all that's left is to get the stones in there. That will have to wait for tomorrow though. I've been working nearly 12 hours continuously on this piece and I need to go to bed before I start making stupid mistakes.

Here's hoping tomorrow's set (assuming I get time to work/post) includes a finished piece 🤞🤞

[brooksdesigns]

I've gotten the seats for the pave drilled out on the top plate now. I took this after mounting the piece in what I thought would be a good orientation for shaping the filigree but it turned out to be kind of uselss.

Different view, same crappy mount.

The filigree is all rounded now and I've started polishing it up. This is taken after a round of Luxi gray compound polishing.

Oh man, I thought this whole piece was gone for a little bit here tonight. One of the little curly q ends of the filigree fell off in the ultrasonic after I had finished polishing the whole thing up. I was livid, because I've melted the things before on accident, but to have one just fall off for no reason? Dreadful.

Actual footage of me attempting to solder a transplanted curly q end onto the piece.

I eventually got the thing on there without destroying anything else, which was a huge relief.

The whole piece is polished up now and ready for setting. Here's hoping that all goes well and I have a finished piece here in the next couple of days 🤞🤞🤞