Earlier this year when we could have all our lovely clients visit us we welcomed Christine into our workshop to help hand make her champagne and pink diamond ring – a unique Argyle diamond creation.

Champagne or cognac diamonds are available in other places around the world but just like pinks, most are found in Australia – with the mine sadly closing in a few months.
The Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia produces many champagne coloured diamonds (or a shade thereof), which means they are more affordable than pinks. Colours range from light champagne colour to deep cognac colours.

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After spending some time with Peter in the showroom, Christine and her husband Adrian selected a brilliant cut champagne diamond (C2 colour) and a matching pair of pear shaped pink diamonds (7P colour).
The ring would be hand made using three different coloured golds to complement each diamond. The champagne diamond to be set into a 6 claw white gold setting, the pink diamonds set in rose gold and the ring shank to be made in yellow gold.

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Eleanor worked with Christine to bring her dream ring to life. The ‘Workshop Experience’ enabled Eleanor to show Christine through the initial stages of creating the band of her three stone ring. The rolling mill was used to turn the 6mm bar of yellow gold into the appropriate dimensions needed.

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When working with gold it is important to ‘anneal’ the metal as you work it. The gold becomes work hardened and the annealing process (heating up the metal using a jeweller’s torch to change the mechanical properties, reducing the hardness and internal stresses) allows us to keep working the metal without issues such as cracking occurring.

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After rolling the gold through the rolling mills, Eleanor showed Christine another technique for drawing down metal. This technique used a draw bench and a variety of draw plates to create a sharp cornered square bar of gold. This will create the basis of the band for the ring.

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Eleanor began working on the settings for each of the diamonds, using a combination of the rolling mills and draw bench to create all components for the settings.

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To create the centre white gold setting for the champagne diamond, six wires are soldered together and bent up and shaped using a doming block and punch to produce the ‘basket’ shape.

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The wire basket is then soldered to the under bezel to complete the central setting. The external ‘V’ shaped claw for the pink diamonds are then fitted to the rose gold pear shaped settings.

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 The three settings were soldered together and the bridge piece for the ring shank soldered into position. Using a variety of files Eleanor shaped the ring, creating a delicate reverse tapered upswept band.

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 After soldering the settings and shank together, the ring is given a thorough polish. This is a very important step as once the stones are set it is impossible to access a lot of these small hidden areas.

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The three diamonds were carefully set into each individual setting.
The end result, a beautiful timeless handcrafted piece both unique in coloured diamonds and gold combination. We are sure Christine will get a lifetime of happiness out of her new ring.

If you are interested in any more information on our ‘Workshop Experience’ or pink or champagne diamonds please email or contact us on (03) 9650 3830.
We would be more than happy to help you out.