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Custom Surfer Wedding Rings

Deep Bright Blue Sapphire wave crashing on the Beach with this Surf Wedding Ring

Walker Goldsmiths particularly love ANYTHING to do with the sea and making sea themed jewelry is a real treat for us. Custom Surfer Wedding Rings fall right in that category!

Our son, Owen Garland, met a very fine fellow when he was working years ago in San Diego, CA. Andrew and he hit it off and became good friends often Surfing being the adventure. Andrew lived in Carlsbad right near the beach, so handy to ride the waves. I even had an opportunity to go surfing with the kids on a visit down to see them, so my reference to Andrew was also Surfing. They were all of the age of marrying and starting their families. Andrew still hadn’t found his “Sweetie”.

When we talked to Andrew last 4^th of July on his visit up to see us he mentioned that he had found the girl of his dreams. This was great news! He said he had to make the decision about marriage and get on with asking Avery to marry him since he was a college student still and changing his degree directions he felt a bit insecure. We cheered him on to go for it and our married kids encouraged him to make the leap. When he was leaving with a big grin he told us he would give us a call about rings. After a few months he did!

We’ve always loved and enjoyed Andrew so the prospect of him marrying and having a family to help give him purpose and adventure in his life is a joy to us. He pretty much gave us free reign with the design with few restrictions or directions other than wanting a Sapphire stone and something that looked sort of like a picture that they found together and emailed to us. I noticed that it reminded me so much of a wave that I was driven to that and memories of surfing that day with Andrew and our kids. Owen went Sapphire searching and I started designing. The Sapphire Owen Walker found turned out to be a gorgeous dark bright blue that was a perfect color for the deep center of a crashing wave. It was a totally fun ring to make. Then the design for making Andrew’s ring just fell into place. He wanted a simple 7mm band, but I had to jazz it up with carving to create a beach gravel look. It was a surprise to him and I was anxious, but he loved it and Avery did too. Thank you so much kids for incorporating Walker Goldsmiths into the finishing touches on the symbols of your promises to each other, the Custom Surfer Rings. We’re so very happy for you.

Custom Surfer Beach Wedding Ring

February On The North West Coast

Written by Owen Walker · 2 Comments

Classic Salish Village

Classic Haida house at Tanu

February

It is now mid-February and we are seeing the first signs of spring, the grasses and many other plants are sprouting, the Hazelnuts have bloomed and the willows are blooming, there are several other types of trees that are showing signs of bursting forth in the next few weeks. But most important of all the nettles are sprouting and the fiddle heads are coming up. We often speak of “Flu season” or the time when we are most susceptible to colds and the flu. You can imagine what it was like in the old days going for several months without fresh food especially when it is dark and rainy outside. We have a hard time staying well even with vitamins and other supplements, so when the nettles and fiddleheads appeared it was time to stock up on vitamin C and other delicious nutrients.

I case you are not aware of fiddleheads, they are the first sprouts of ferns. They are called fiddleheads because the look like the top of a fiddle where the tuning pegs are. They are one of the earliest vegetable foods to appear along with nettles and are bursting with much needed vitamins and vegetable nutrients. Extremely good for you! Another plant food that will appear soon is fireweed sprouts they are also good for you. There would not have been much other foraging going on except on the beach where clam season is well underway with late night low tides and cold water making the clams most delicious. We overlook just how nutritious clams are. Clams filter seawater and filter out plankton. When we eat the clam we usually eat all of the clam including the contents of its stomach, which gives us every trace mineral in the sea and all of the goodness that the clam has filtered out for its own dinner. The same goes for mussels which would have been harvested and eaten in large amounts at this time of year. The mussels are also full of eggs this time of year which makes them extra nutritious and extra delicious. Paralytic shellfish poisoning is a hazard here in the Salish Sea, but only in the warmer months. When I first moved here the old timers told us to eat shellfish (clams, mussels, and oysters) only in months that have an “R” in them. All the cold water months! There was still plenty of dried salmon and berries, some dried herring roe and some herrings and maybe some halibut or rockfish. No one was going hungry.

School would have been in full swing, and other than an occasional hunting trip, things would have been pretty quiet.

A Gorgeous Gaudy Heart Shaped Custom Ring

Written by Janet Walker · 1 Comment

Custom Heart Shaped Ring

Quite a few years ago Sandy contacted Walker Goldsmiths wanting a Custom Ring made with her gold and diamonds. She came to us with a little box of diamonds that she’d been collecting for years and a handful of gold that she wanted to Recycle. We love to accommodate since “Goldsmiths were the first ever Recyclers on this Planet”. No gold is intentionally thrown out in the trash, it is just used over and over!!

We started out by sorting out her diamonds, seeing what she had and trying to get an idea of what she wanted. She had a lot of diamonds as she was always buying jewelry. It was kind of her Savings Account…not a bad idea! As a retired nurse who had made decent money in her working years she loved to wear nice jewelry. She had one big 2 carat heart shaped diamond that she wanted to be the center stone, then her idea was to put diamonds from an old diamond bracelet all around the center stone. So we collaborated and I started designing. She wanted as many diamonds as I could get on one ring and she wanted “something heart shaped”…and a finger is only so big! Sandy was not a tiny gal but she did not have a large hand either. If I was to design for a maximum number of diamonds I’d have to elevate the design instead of going “pave” – paving a surface with diamonds.

Heart Shaped Ring with Heart Shaped Diamond and 63 round diamonds

Heart Shaped Ring with 64 Diamonds

As the designer I was really challenged, I tell you! It had to be a tall ring, yet elegant and wearable. Sandy had received the diamond bracelet from her ex-husband and definitely wanted to use those diamonds which were all beautiful quality and pretty large. I wanted to make a heart ring with some pizzazz and to be interesting in shape not just a blah heart! Sandy was all for it and said she trusted me to come up with something she’d like. So I made the wax model, Owen lost wax cast it with her 14kt yellow gold, he polished it all up beautiful and set the diamonds. The Custom Ring worked out to include 64 diamonds weighting in at approximately 15 Carats!

When this Custom Ring was all done and ready for Sandy to pick up I called her and she said, “Is it Gaudy?” and I couldn’t lie, I told her it was “Gorgeous Gaudy!” She said, “Wonderful!” We always laugh about that fun experience of making the Gorgeous Gaudy Heart Shaped Custom Ring. Not only is Recycling of old jewelry a good idea at Walker Goldsmiths, but it feels so good to see our customers excited and happy about being able to wear something that they like made from their old pieces. Sandy has sadly passed away lately and her daughter has this ring included in the Estate Jewelry to be sold. If anyone is interested please let us know and we can convey your interest. Thanks for the fun, Sandy.

A Custom Heart Shaped Ring with Pizzazz

Not your usual Custom Heart Shaped Ring

How Mother Bear Got Her Custom Story Ring

Written by Janet Walker · Leave a Comment

Sterling Story Ring of Mother Bear and her 3 Cubs

Walker Goldsmiths received a referral from our friends, Rhonda and Rod at Alaska Rod’s in Haines, AK this past summer about a friend of theirs who wanted a Custom Story Ring. Rhonda gave Marcel our email address and we proceeded to email back and forth figuring out this adventure of a Custom Story Ring. Marcel said, “The ring I was looking for would be a bear at the bottom of a tree protecting three cubs. The bear would be my wife and the cubs our children. If you could send me a couple of sketches we could go from there.” So I did. This sounded like fun. At first Marcel wanted to surprise his wife, Barb, but as we progressed it needed permissions and “druthers” from his wife so she was brought into the process.

“Mother Bear” would be carved on the inside of the band, I liked this! The 3 rings I drew up had squared off bottoms like I usually do to keep the balance better, but they didn’t want the ring to be squared off on the bottom because The Circle has significance for them. They chose one design and we tweaked it here and there. And as an added bit of significance there should be two gold bands; one rose gold and one yellow gold added into the design. They said “yes, the round ring has significance for us. “ Mother Bear” would also like a little bit of silver showing above the gold band on top and a little bit of silver showing on the bottom of the gold band. The top gold band should be rose gold and the bottom yellow representing them as mother and father.”

Sterling Three Bears Story Ring with inlaid Red and Yellow Gold bands

This was getting more interesting and challenging as we went along. I was challenged by this because it changed a bit now and then as we went along, and I loved it, especially being partial to Bears. They wanted the bears to be as life-like as I could make them in different poses and actions. This was a trick in an 8mm space; 3 bears and a tree trunk. Sterling Silver was the perfect medium because after I carved it in wax and Owen lost wax cast the ring we could polish the casting and texture the bears. At this point Owen inlaid the bands of gold. Then we oxidized the recessed places which helps to create depth and action. Then we mailed it off to Marcel to present it to “Mother Bear”, his wife and mother of their children. Marcel worked hard to get this ring just right and we were very impressed with his determination! Thank you, Barb and Marcel. Owen and I at Walker Goldsmiths really enjoyed this project. This Custom Story Ring turned out beautiful and we especially enjoyed participating in celebrating this wonderful story of the Family Circle of love and protection.

Sterling Silver Story Ring of Mother Bear

Story Ring of Mother Bear and her 3 Cubs

The Platinum Group is not a Jazz Band

Written by Owen Walker · Leave a Comment

Here at Walker Goldsmiths we use precious metals every day and even though metallurgy is a science we often feel we are dancing with our materials to get the desired results. Gold (Au) and silver (Ag) are the precious metals. Platinum (Pt) is often added to that list and while platinum is a precious metal it comes with a group of cousins usually referred to as the “platinum group”. It is like people referring to us as that Walker Group, because there are a lot of us and some of us have names that are strange to people who don’t know us very well. The Platinum group are metals with similar properties that are usually found together and in fact are hard to separate. When you look at the periodic chart of the elements you will notice that copper (CU) silver and gold are arranged in a vertical line, and all three have very similar physical properties. Such as malleability, ductility and resistance to corrosion. Now go one column to the left and we have nickel(Ni), palladium(Pd), and platinum, another jump to the left and we have cobalt(Co), rhodium(Rh) and iridium(Ir). Sometimes ruthenium (Ru) and osmium (Os) are included in the group but they are both quite rare and have little or no commercial value

The Chemist’s best friend, the periodic chart of the elements

Rhodium is used to electroplate nickel white gold to make it look whiter as nickel is a yellowish white and rhodium is a blue white that looks great in a display case! Palladium is used to alloy with gold to make palladium white gold which is the white gold of choice in our studio as it has a pleasing blue white color and never needs to be plated to look good. It is a little more expensive as palladium is more expensive than nickel. Iridium is the next member of the family and is often used as an alloy for platinum (10%Ir, 90% Pt). I have never seen Platinum alloyed more than 10% used in jewelry so when you get an article that is stamped PLAT it is at least .900 fine and is often stamped with the alloying metal cobalt or iridium or palladium as well. This is the big reason that Platinum jewelry is more expensive than gold jewelry, even when gold and platinum are nearly the same price gold is usually alloyed to 14K (.585 gold) while Platinum is usually .900 fine. There are also some manufacturing considerations. Platinum has a very high melting point at 3215 degrees F. It takes some special equipment to cast platinum jewelry so we do not do this in our studio. We do fabricate some simpler designs in platinum and I have learned to love the welding properties of this amazing and beautiful metal. If you have questions ask them in the comments section and I will respond.

We now set all diamonds of any size in Platinum crowns, and when customers come to us with a worn crown that needs retipping we encourage them to pay a little more and get a platinum crown as it will never need retipping. Platinum has the amazing property of abrasion resistance. When you cut it with a saw or a graver or a file it feels SOFT, but then you go to polish it and it takes forever! We even have special polishing compounds just for polishing platinum. If your diamond needs tips get a new platinum crown from Walker Goldsmiths and have it reset into platinum. You will not regret it!

A Custom Classic Menorah made from Recycled Family Gold

Written by Janet Walker · Leave a Comment

One of the big perks in being Walker Goldsmiths is being able to serve the folks that come to us with their jewelry desires. This Custom Classic Menorah Coat Pin made from Recycled Family Gold was a big treat. Dave wanted it to be a surprise for his sweetheart wife, Jennifer, as a Hanukkah Gift so we had to be sneaky!

Hanukkiyah for Jennifer 2014, 3 inches wide x 2.5 inches tall

We ordered the 9 marquise Sapphires and crowns to fit them and I proceeded to make a mold of a pot metal costume piece that he had found. We made a wax in the mold and then altered the wax to look “better”. Owen then invested the wax and lost wax cast it with Recycled family 14kt Yellow Gold. Followed by finishing the Menorah by sandblasting and polishing then soldering on the crowns and setting the 9 marquise Sapphires.

I was showing this wax to my Jewish girlfriend, Barb, and calling it a Menorah and she kindly told me that because of the 9 candleholders it is a Hanukkiyah. So I googled it, of course, and found a great website to explain to me what this was all about;

“A hanukkiyah is a candelabrum with eight candleholders in a row and a ninth candleholder set a little above the others. It’s different from a menorah, which has seven branches and was used in the Temple before it was destroyed in 70 CE. A hanukkiyah is nevertheless a kind of menorah.

The hanukkiyah is used during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and commemorates the miracle of the oil. According to the Hanukkah story, once Jewish revolutionaries had retaken the Temple from the Syrians they wanted to rededicate it to God and restore its ritual purity. Eight days worth of oil were needed to complete the ritual purification, but they were only able to find one day’s worth of oil. They lit the menorah anyway and miraculously the oil lasted for eight full days.

In commemoration of this event Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days and a candle is lit on the hanukkiyah on each of those days. One candle is lit the first night, two the second, and so on, until the final night when all the candles are lit. Each of the eight candles is lit with a “helper” candle known as the shamash. The shamash is lit first, is used to light the other candles, and then is returned to the ninth candle spot, which is set apart from the others.”

Jewelry IS such an emotional issue at every time of year with family gatherings and celebrations, marking important events, showing love and promises, memories and traditions. It’s probably the biggest part of why “We love our job!” here at Walker Goldsmiths.

Hanukkiyah Gift 2014

More about Alloys

Written by Owen Walker · 2 Comments

Hand carved sterling Grizzly Bear with red gold by Owen Walker

Now that Walker Goldsmiths has explored Sterling Silver let us explore a rather more complex set of Alloys, those referred to as “karat gold”. Just like sterling we have the stamping laws to contend with. The law was designed to appeal to the vanity of artists so that if you put your name or trademark on a piece of jewelry you MUST stamp the karat quality of the gold. The gold content of each karat is set by law with a .01% allowable error. Stamping laws vary from country to country so I will just discuss the ones that are common in the United States. The two most common karats in the US are 14K and 10K with some higher end pieces being made of 18K.

I should explain the difference between karats and carats. In the US the symbol for karat which is the amount of gold in an alloy is K. Carat is the weight of a stone, for instance, a 1 Ct. Diamond. Pure gold (.999fine) is 24 karat gold so to find the gold content of 14K we divide 14 by 24 which gives us the decimal for the fineness or gold content of the alloy 14K is .583 fine. This means that there is 58.3 percent gold in the alloy. Now you are wondering of what does the rest consist? Legally it does not matter what the rest of the alloy is, but it matters when you want a color or some specific properties. Years ago my dear friend Doug Phillips gave me a book called Gold Alloys Their Manufacture & Applications by George E. Gee published in 1929. This is a fascinating read and it also has lists of gold alloys, the amounts of different metal used in each one and the uses and properties. Here is one called 14 Karat Rich Fine Yellow Gold Alloy; Fine gold .583, fine silver .150, and pure copper .267. The rule is that the gold content stays constant, the silver, copper and other metals can be varied depending on the use and color desired.

Orca Hand Carved inside Custom 14kt Red Gold Wedding Ring

14kt Red Gold Custom Hand Carved Wedding Ring

I make a 14K red gold that has no silver in it so it looks like copper but does not tarnish, so it is .583 gold and .414 copper. If you look at Black hills gold you will see green gold (more silver) and pink gold (more copper) to make the flowers and leaves. White gold is commonly made with nickel in it; 3% nickel in an alloy will bleach it to white. White gold is often hard and springy, hard to work but easy to cast. My favorite white gold has no nickel but has Palladium as the chief alloy. It is a very pleasing color, whiter than nickel white gold with a slightly bluish cast. Most articles made of white gold are rhodium plated, because white gold has a slightly yellow hue which makes it look dirty. Rhodium is one of the platinum group of metals as is palladium, both are very white with a slight blue overtone that looks really good in the display cases, but rhodium wears off as you wear the ring. If you want your ring to look best for a long time get it made with Palladium white gold. If you have any questions about gold alloys put them in the comment section on our Walker Goldsmiths web site and I will do my best to answer.

Black hills colored gold

three rings each a different color of gold

Sterling Silver From Scratch

Written by Owen Walker · 1 Comment

Owen Walker Melting Alloyed Sterling Silver

Here at Walker Goldsmiths we make our Sterling Silver from scratch. Silver is one of the noble metals along with gold and platinum, the chemical symbol is Ag, which stands for argentium. Silver is the most conductive (of both heat and electricity) substance at normal temperatures and pressures, it is the standard that all others are measured against. Silver has been valued for all of human history more for its beauty than its rarity, as many cultures valued silver over gold. Silver is sometimes used as pure silver and referred to as fine silver. Fineness is a measure of the parts using 1.000 as pure or fine, and since there may always be a trace of something else (gold, platinum, copper, tin or zinc) fine metal is rarely referred to as 1.000, or one thousand fine, it is always a decimal as .999.

An alloy simply means a mixture of metals. All alloys have at least some different properties than the original parent metals. As an illustration there several thousand different kinds of steel each suited for a different industrial or domestic use. The two things they all have in common are iron and carbon. When there is a higher percentage of carbon the steel will be able to harden and hold an edge better than a steel with less carbon.

crucible of molten alloyed sterling silver

alloyed sterling silver ready to pour

For a silver alloy to be sterling it is mandated by law that it is 925 parts silver and 75 parts something else. Traditionally the something else has been copper, but copper causes a variety of problems including firescale and tarnish. There have been several new alloys for silver invented in the last decade or so that diminish the problems of copper as an alloy. Some of them have trademarked names like Sterlium, Argentium and S88. Each of these alloys contain the element Germanium along with several other elements such as copper and tin. These are all what are called firescale free alloys which means that all the problems that we used to have with copper sterling are gone. Walker Goldsmiths uses S88 alloy because I like to alloy my own silver and roll my own sheet for bracelets, pendants and earrings. We also use this alloy for all of our Potlatch collection rings, earrings and pendants because we get less tarnish on the finished product. I may be a control freak, I may be crazy or I may just enjoy the whole process of making my Sterling Silver from scratch.

ingot mold being filled with moltensterling silver

Pouring sterling silver into an ingot for rolling

Old Memories Recycled with Custom Jewelry Creations

Written by Janet Walker · Leave a Comment

14kt yellow gold Custom Recycled Ring

Here’s another example of Walker Goldsmiths working with a friend to recycle her beautiful old memories and broken jewelry into more modern wearable Custom Jewelry. Kathy came to us a while back with her little bag of broken and not wearable jewelry that she just couldn’t toss out or sell for scrap money. Some of the pieces have so many memories! We have been friends for a few years and we’ve done some minor jewelry repairs for her, but now she was wanting to trade out some bits and pieces for a couple of beautiful keepsakes. These pieces were piling up in the jewelry box and were not even wearable! So we collaborated and came up with a couple of designs.

From Recycled Jewelry into Keepsakes

Kathy and her husband had taken a cruise and while on that cruise had purchased a beautiful deep raspberry red Garnet, probably a Rhodolite. This Garnet was wanting to be in a ring so we accommodated. Kathy wanted a simple yet elegant design that Garnets lend themselves to so well. Red Garnets were the most commonly used gemstones by the Celtic peoples who roamed the Western Roman Empire. They have been found in burials inlaid in gold from Northern Europe to Anglo-Saxon England to the Black Sea. They have such deep rich appealing color and look so wonderful with gold. As you can see here in Kathy’s Custom 14kt Gold and Rhodolite Garnet Ring.

This Custom Ring pictured here has another great story. As a teenager Kathy had received a beautiful Pearl ring from a woman that was like a Grandmother to her. She had worn it and loved it until it was falling into bits. There was nothing we could do to the ring itself to revive it because it had become so fragile. The only thing possible was to create a stronger ring and incorporate a part of the original keepsake into it. I carved a wax that created a strong support for the original “swirl”, lost wax cast it in Kathy’s 14kt Gold, we put in a crown and set a 1 ct. size center stone. This was a very fun project because we could use a part from the original ring. The love, memories and magic now go forward into the new piece. I really think we can feel it! Now Kathy has a beautiful ring to help her remember the love of a sweet friend from her past. Walker Goldsmiths enjoys being a part of these “Love Stories”. Thank you, Kathy, for letting us help revive these memories by creating these beauties for you!

Memories Revived

Beautiful Custom Hand Carved Wedding Ring that few will ever see

Written by Janet Walker · Leave a Comment

14kt Red Gold Ring with Hand Carved Orca Inside

Arin’s Custom 14kt Red Gold Ring with Orca inside

Walker Goldsmiths had a bit of fun with a Custom Hand Carved Wedding Ring with a secret trick. The customer, Arin, came to us to get a Custom Hand Carved Wedding Band that he knew Owen Walker could make for him. Arin works for the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Program and has a very big love and respect for sea life.

One of Arin’s favorite Sea Creatures is the Orca Whale. He’s seen Sterling and Gold bracelets and rings carved by Owen before and decided even before he came to see us that a hand carved wedding ring was what he wanted. At the time of Arin’s visit Owen was inlaying bracelets with red gold; beautiful 14kt red gold alloyed by Owen Walker to achieve a special red color. Since Arin works with Salmon, those delicious, special red meat creatures of the sea, he was attracted to the glorious red gold. When Owen suggested that he could make the entire ring in 14kt Red Gold Arin got very excited.

Now the little tricky catch unfolds. Arin wanted a carving of an Orca on the inside of the ring! Owen said, “Well, OK, sure. This way Arin can wear his beautiful Custom Wedding Ring all the time at work and the carving will be less likely to wear down.” Not an easy thing with Owen’s rings because he carves so deeply, but none the less, a good idea! So I dug around in our files of North West Coast Orca ring and bracelet designs to find something that might do the trick. And sure enough with a few alterations to the design the right one popped up and Arin choose it as his own. Owen carved it on the 14kt Red Gold then sawed the ring out of the rolled flattened red gold sheet. After shaping the ring so it was domed a bit, a good feature that adds beauty and comfortable wear ability, the ring was soldered into size and rounded. Then it was polished and inspected and we called up Arin to come get this beauty! Thank you so much, Arin, for the privilege of letting Walker Goldsmiths make this beautiful Custom Hand Carved Wedding Ring, a memento of your wedding vows. It was a lot of fun!

14kt Red Gold Custom Hand Carved Wedding Ring