Hydraulic Die Forming Discussion Group

Re-creation of Art Deco die struck platinum ring

I have taken in a platinum ring made in the 1920's to re-create as close as possible to the original. It is a die struck, pierced and engraved ring, that the customer refers to as her Brooklyn Bridge ring. Imagine the Brooklyn Bridge wrapped around three round diamonds, with the roadway on the finger, the suspension towers forming the north-south prongs, with sheet spacers forming east-west fishtail style prongs separating the stones, and a split almost fishtailed shank engraved to look like vines forming the outside prongs, and then pierced and engraved to look like leaves. The piercing requires that the ring be made and pierced in two halves and then assembled.

I bought a Bonny Doon MkIII 20 ton press to do this job. In the past I would have carved the ring in wax, cut it in half and cast it, then pierce, assemble and engrave it. My plan this time around is to die form the two half shells of the ring, as that was how it was done originally, and it just seems like the right way to do it.

My intention was to make a delrin male die and form it from the outside, but after really looking at the original, it has very deep creases between the stones. I am now thinking it must be done with a female die and pressed from the back to form the creases.

I have limited experience with a press, having done only a few matrix die pieces, but I have Susan Kingsley's book. My questions are; would I be best to use steel for this, given the deep creases or would delrin or even acrylic work in conjunction with engraving? It will be a maximum of about 5mm deep, using about 17 or 18 gauge platinum sheet and I only plan on making the one ring. Would a conforming die set be better? Should I cut out the ring halves to shape and size and make the die to fit the ring halves?

Any advice or suggestions would be most appreciated. Thanks!

Dave

Tue Aug 19 '08

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