Handmade Jewellery From The Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham

Wedding Rings

All of the wedding rings available at Hathaway Styles are completely hand made to order, below is a brief summary of how we make our wedding rings.

1.) A small bar (wire) of solid gold or platinum is rolled and drawn through formers to create the particular profile of ring e.g. court shape.

2.) This profiled wire is then cut to the required length for the ring size of the customer.

3.) Careful annealing (heating) of the metal wire softens it allowing it to be shaped.

4.) The wire is shaped into a ring and is then soldered.

5.) The ring is filed and smoothed down.

6.) Using a ring mandrel the ring is hammered into shape to ensure it is perfectly circular.

7.) Once perfectly circular the ring is placed into a sizer which ensures the ring is accurately sized.

8.) Finally the ring is filed down once more and then polished which brings out the metals true beauty and lustre.

Diamond Rings

Hathaway Styles is proud to design and make all of its diamond rings in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter. All of our diamond rings are either handmade or semi handmade. Below is a brief summary of how we produce our semi handmade diamond rings.

1.) Everything starts at the drawing board; sketches are drawn by our jewellery designers which are then made into life sized scale models.

2.) A finalised master model is then made using silver and brass.

3.) The model is placed between sheets of un-vulcanised (soft) rubber in a frame, this sandwich of un-vulcanised rubber and model is then placed into a press.

4.) Once in the press it is then heated to vulcanise (harden) the rubber.

5.) After cooling the rubber and model are removed from the press, the model is removed which then leaves a cavity.

6.) Molten wax is injected into the cavity and left to harden.

7.) The wax models are then removed, and attached to a wax stand (tree) with other wax models as well.

8.) A metal flask is placed over the tree and special plaster is poured in, great care is then taken to remove all of the air from the plaster in a vacuum chamber, as this can lead to poor finish if not removed.

9.) Once the plaster has set the flask is placed into an oven where the wax melts and runs out leaving a cavity for the metal of choice.

10.) The temperature of the oven is increased to harden the plaster ready for the metal of choice. Once the plaster in the flask has hardened sufficiently it is removed and placed inside a centrifugal casting machine.

11.)The metal of choice is melted in a crucible and then added to the flask, the machine is then set spinning which forces the metal into the cavities.

12.) Everything is then cooled down and the plaster is removed leaving the tree and castings in gold/platinum, this is now cleaned up and soaked in acid.

13.) Individual castings are removed from the tree, and are smoothed down and then sent off to be hallmarked.

14.)Once the parts have been hallmarked by the Birmingham Assay Office they can then be mounted by our ring mounters, and the diamond set by our skilled diamond setters.

15.) Finally the ring is filed down once more and then polished which brings out the metals true beauty and lustre.