The Full Design Process of the Apollo Ring
This ring has to be one of my favorite everyday rings. A signet ring that comes from sizes 5-11 and has a beautiful sunstone in the middle surrounded by a mini zircon gem and an engraving of “Apollo” to pay tribute to the sun god. This ring was designed by our instagram followers, we designed these rings using instagram polls and having our followers what specific elements they wanted implemented into the ring.
Who is Apollo?
Apollo is a Greek god, mainly associated with the sun, bow, music and divination. He is arguably one of the most admirable gods in Greek mythology. He is the son of Zeus and Leto and the twin brother to Artemis.
His birth story is quite unique; Leto was escaping from the wrath of Hera and was cursed not to give birth on land. Leto was able to escape to the land of Delos, a floating island. There she gave birth, first to Artemis and then nine days later to Apollo.
Apollo was considered the most loved god because of his association with many positive aspects of humanity, such as music, poetry, purification, healing and medicine.
How We Involved Our Customers?
I posted a poll on our instagram asking about what pieces we could design next because I wanted to know what my customers wanted. The most requested piece that day was an Apollo ring.
I started to post options that would make it easier for our customers to pick and choose what they wanted.
They asked for a signet ring, with a sunstone/crystal, and a sun pattern.
With that in mind I decided to move on to the sketch.
Design Process
Sketch
Our Sketch was made by Rijaa Khan. It included all the elements of what people wanted, it also included the colors we were aiming for and the size.
This sketch was the blueprint to where we want the Apollo Ring to look at the end, but through out the journey of making this ring, it was an extreme struggle to get everything right.
3D MODEL
The 3D mold for the Apollo Ring only needed to be made twice. The first time we thought we knew what we were doing. But as came to completing the first ring, we realized the zircon gems around the sunstone looked two crowded and instead of looking like the sun, it looked like a flower.
The second 3D modeling we did indicated the right amount of spacing we needed to get the pieces right. We made sure to also expand the width of the face of the ring.
3D MOLD
The Mold was made twice just like the 3D model because of the mistakes we made on the first mold. A mold is made so that we can have an idea about the size and shape of the rings before we go ahead and start making the stainless steel base.
STAINLESS STEEL BASE
The stainless steel base is the main material we use since it is more accessible and cheaper, which keeps our prices affordable. This is made by pouring the stainless steel into molds and then we file away extra metal that was left. The filing also helps define the details such as the dresses, the torch, the crown and more. The next step is to polish the stainless steel base so we can fix any mistakes before moving on to the gold plating.
GOLD PLATING
I use 18k gold to coat my jewelry and give it a vibrant color that stands out and is less likely to tarnish. We use a coating system called PVD (physical vapor deposition), which is when we take the stainless steel base and vapourize a thin coating of gold. I use this method because I find jewelry to last longer and be more resistant. If you want to learn more about PVD coating, check out this article:
https://alcadyne.com/what-is-pvd-coating-how-it-works/
PAVING
Before we move on to the engraving and polishing of the Apollo Rings, we pave the spots on to the ring where we were going to be adding the zircon gems. This is done using different machinery and then hand gluing the gems on to the piece.
ENGRAVING
We engraved “Apollo” using a laser and individualized