Happy Canada Day!!

DuKo Designs wishes everyone a very happy Canada day. I'll be out of town camping and doing Canadian things like drinking beer, eating maple syrup, paying homage to the beaver, and whatever else it is that we do. Have a great long weekend !!

Remaking a favourite....

These 14k yellow gold and sterling silver wedding bands were made special order for clients who liked an existing design that I've made a few times in limited quantities.


Having a rubber mold of the design sure does make life easy. First I inject three waxes from my rubber mold. Cast them into sterling silver. I needed to combine two of them together to make one ring large enough for him. Hers only needed minor tweeking to get the proper size. I then got the files out and removed the sterling silver edges.
After making 14k yellow gold square wire, cutting, bending, and joining the pieces into replacement edges, I was ready to solder them in place. Once I was satisfied with the way everything lined up, I filed and sanded the rings until near completion. I applied a dark patina to the silver that would sink into the crevices creating a nice contrast once the rings were given their final polish. (shown below).

Custom Wedding Band : 19k White Gold with Sterling Silver Inlay

I thought the process of how I created this custom wedding band would be interesting to show on my blog. These photos show some of the techniques I went through, from carving the wax to the patina finish.

It began by carving a man's ring size 8.25 from a wax tube. It was then cast in 19k white gold. This created the frame for the structure of the band.




Sterling silver was inlay-ed into the center which allows for contrasting colors and textures, as the 19k gold is a very hard metal in comparison. The 19k white also doesn't react to the patina I used.







I annealed the ring and added the hammered texture carefully so as not to ruin the shape of the ring with the constant tapping.


I finished the piece to a high polish and then the final patina was added.




The contrast in the two metals through color and hammered texture make it a truly unique design. I was quite pleased with the finished result.

Proud parents

When my good friend told me that he wanted a rough gold bar with his young daughters name in it to hang on a chain for his wife, I have to admit I didn't know what to make of it. I'm a little more accustom to making much more polished and finished pieces. Luckily, I'm in the business of making sure my clients get what they want. He had all the gold, we just put a blow torch on it and poured a small ingot. Then a few passes through the rolling mill to flatten it out. Solder on some jump rings to hang it on a chain. Rough engraving (what he wanted) is quick and easy too. I'm rather pleased with the results, and there wasn't hours of sanding and polishing either.

Building a "Koru"

I just put the finishing touches on a neat custom wedding band for a client of mine in San Fransisco. He sent me this image at left of a Koru. I had to Wikipedia "Koru" to find out what sort of custom ring I would be making, the "Wiki" definition goes like this:
The koru (Māori for "bight"or "loop") is a spiral shape based on the shape of a new unfurling silver fern frond and symbolizing new life, growth, strength and peace. It is an integral symbol in Māori art, carving and tattoos. The circular shape of the koru helps to convey the idea of perpetual movement while the inner coil suggests a return to the point of origin.
After a few emails back and forth of various sketches and designs we settled on the image shown, above at right, and then it was time to get busy making the ring. I made the inner shank from 14k yellow gold, and the outer shank out of 19k white gold (to match his fiances). I used a template printed from the original image he had sent me to trace the Koru onto the 19k stock and pierce out the design with my jewellers saw. After some careful fitting the two bands were in place and I could solder them together. Some filing, sanding and polishing and the ring was complete.

Duko Designs Internship with Amanda Lye

From January to May Duko Designs had an intern, Amanda Lye, from Halifax's Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. Some things we worked on while Amanda was in the studio included a series of branch and buds, sage leaves and a Japanese maple leaf belt buckle. This included everything from design, fabrication, various mold making techniques, wax injecting and casting multiples. We will soon have a whole new jewellery line with the branch and buds. Here are a few photos of the various process' involved in a few of the pieces we made.

We collected some branches from a storm in January and cast them in jewellers bronze. Then we made designs from the cast branches to include the buckle and hook for the belt buckle and earrings. We fabricated these and then rubber molded the finished designs and had them cast in silver. They were filed, sanded and tumbled along with the sage leaf line. The final step was to patina them to bring out colours such as orange, red and purple.

...having fun

My studio has been a very busy place since I last updated my blog. As always there has been a steady flow of custom pieces, usually wedding bands and engagement rings, however I've also had the pleasure of creating various other unique jewellery projects. The bracelet pictured at left is actually many of my clients old broken 14k yellow gold bangles, mounted on a large custom sterling cuff. The original bangles held significant sentimental value but needed a change to keep them from breaking over and over again. The new invigorated bracelet holds all the sentiment of the old bangels, yet has the flare and structural quality of a fresh piece. The joy that I witnessed when my client received the finished project reminded me why I really like my job.