After we got the polishing to a point where it was almost done, was time to think about the final steps.
The first of the final steps, was to do a mirror polish with something called jeweler’s rouge. It’s a messy substance that gets red everywhere around you. I took a Dremel and the polishing bit (which I’d never understood it’s use…) and applied the rouge all over. It took the “brushed chrome” look that I’d gotten to, and made it super shiny. That was really unexpected, even though Russ had told me what was going to happen, and super exciting to see!
We had a bit of a set back at this stage though. Two problems with the final gem – first, it was still on a boat from Thailand, and second, it was the wrong size. Because of the first problem, we’d gone back to Mountain Gems and picked up a few 4mm garnets to use as a temporary stone. When we tried to set it, we realized that we’d change the size to 5mm, and we’d ordered a 4mm ruby. Back to Mountain Gems to exchange for some 5mm garnets to use, and back online to find a 5mm ruby. Luckily the smaller ruby wasn’t super expensive, but it’s still a bit of a fuck up.
Another moment that had Russ sweating a lot. He put the ring into this vice and very carefully used his power drill to widen the gem hole. We’d made it 4.7mm and needed it to be 5mm. 0.3mm’s >.> Centering this was a pain, and had him very worried, but he got it in the end!
We heated up this resin stick thing that looks a bit like ice cream. The point is to get the entire ring stuck in it, except for the setting, so that when we put a lot of pressure on the setting to hold the stone it, we don’t bend the ring. After it cooled down, it was stuck in the resin. I don’t even remember taking it out, but I remember being concerned that it was lost forever.
And here’s the incredible pressure! With the stone in the setting, he used a burnishing tool to “fold over” the edge of the setting to hold the stone in!
A little more polishing, and we were done! Here’s that first photo of it on Miranda’s finger…and here’s a link to my other blog in case you feel like reading a story about how the hell I gave it to her.
I’ve got one more post in this series, which is all the things we still have to do!
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