Custom Jewelry Experience with BGD

[Double E]

Dear PSers,

Currently having a custom diamond ring project with BGD as a wedding anniversary gift, and is awaiting my first CAD. As it's my first on-line purchase as well as a custom one, would love to hear about you guys' experience on working custom with BGD (I personally admire Brian's perfectionalism on crafting stones and thus went with BGD for our stone).

Appreciate if any of you could share your views in terms of the process, craftsmenship, quality of details on the setting etc. especially noted BGD's settings are made by cast and then hand finished (please correct me if I am wrong) which is different from fully hand-forged, though I've learnt from several posts that hand-forged doesn't neccessarily mean better.

 

[holeydonut]

I just ordered from BGD.

One of the things I noticed was that he will send you a 3D printed version of the ring and setting, but seems to need some significant prodding to do so. Maybe you need to spend a ton with him, but it’s a feature I think his shop will accommodate when you’re really close to final.

Also, if you have melee or pave, I think he prefers to cast the bead settings instead of having the bead and bright done by hand.

 

[Double E]

I just ordered from BGD.

One of the things I noticed was that he will send you a 3D printed version of the ring and setting, but seems to need some significant prodding to do so. Maybe you need to spend a ton with him, but it’s a feature I think his shop will accommodate when you’re really close to final.

Also, if you have melee or pave, I think he prefers to cast the bead settings instead of having the bead and bright done by hand.

Thanks~And thought of another question, is the different heads of their rings also cast? Or made in other ways? Just curious anyone ever think about it.

 

[holeydonut]

I think there's a lot of debate about cast vs hand made... for me I think the cast heads and halo made a lot more sense due to the complexity and intricate components. Maybe the main body of the ring being cast is a weaker option, but I can't imagine having someone hand forge everything and have it look this detailed (edit: and not have the ring/setting cost a huge amount).

Here are top/side representations of the slightly modified BGD 810 with the halo scaled to fit the particular BGD diamond (for reference, the center stone is 7.8mm). The halo, the bowl/cradle (red piece in the CAD), and the main shank are all cast (950 platinum + ruthenium alloy).

The bead and bright are also cast. I believe some people say cast-beads are weak, but this ring has such small bead and bright edges, I can't imagine a craftsman doing all of this by hand.

 

[Double E]

I think there's a lot of debate about cast vs hand made... for me I think the cast heads and halo made a lot more sense due to the complexity and intricate components. Maybe the main body of the ring being cast is a weaker option, but I can't imagine having someone hand forge everything and have it look this detailed (edit: and not have the ring/setting cost a huge amount).

Here are top/side representations of the slightly modified BGD 810 with the halo scaled to fit the particular BGD diamond (for reference, the center stone is 7.8mm). The halo, the bowl/cradle (red piece in the CAD), and the main shank are all cast (950 platinum + ruthenium alloy).

The bead and bright are also cast. I believe some people say cast-beads are weak, but this ring has such small bead and bright edges, I can't imagine a craftsman doing all of this by hand.

U got a big rock!