Mara, question on your band

[me1234]

Hi Mara-
I just looked at the picture of your ring, and my girlfriend tried something similar to that yesterday. Where did you get the ring? Any ideas on where to get a ring similar to that? What is the total ct weight all around, minus the center? Thanks

 

[Mara]

Hi there--I have alot of previous posts on this but here are the basics. We had the setting custom made, we liked pave settings and in particular the Michael B lineup with the pave band and 4 prong head. Our jewelers wife has this same ring as mine but in yellow gold with a smaller center stone and slightly larger side stones. We always thought her ring was amazing, so we decided to go with something similar. The side stones are prong set vs pave for security and I had them create the setting to look as close to pave as possible since I didn't want alot of metal showing through.

The band has 24 .03c stones prong set around the entire band, for a total ct of .72c. We could have had it made with .04c stones or .05 stones or whatever size we wanted. This would have made the width of the band much larger though and I wanted a very thin band (this band is around 2.5-2.6mm). I even wanted thinner, around 2mm, but was advised against it as it wouldn't be as safe with such a thin amount of metal and so many stones around the entire band. Esp for daily wear.

So if you like the look, you can probably do a pave or a prong set like mine, the only designers I have really seen do this type of look is Michael B and his rings were expensive. We were quoted $2400 for a MB pave set .50c ctw band and setting and ours is more diamonds, safer and we paid $2k for a custom setting. Plus it was tons of fun to have it made.

Another suggestion if you like the look is to only get diamonds partly around the ring. This also saves $$. However, we didn't like the idea of the stones stopping on the side and then there would be a slight 'step' down from the prong set stones to the smooth regular platinum--and the extra stones to go all the way around were only another $600 so we figured that was a drop in the bucket compared to what we were paying for the entire thing AND it would look better. So we did it.

I love my band, it took a little while to get used to having the stones all the way around, but after a few weeks I was used to it and now I hardly remember its on (not always a good thing!).

Hope that helps, good luck! If you want more info, search my previous archived posts on my ring, I have spoken alot about it in the past. And if you want info on how to have it made, or to get a quote on something similar, I highly recommend our jeweler in Aptos (Jeff Garrett of Garrett Jewelers in Aptos, CA), he used his designer who is very highly spoken of in that area--and the workmanship on this ring is superb. It's heavy feeling when you hold it in your palm of your hand but on the finger it's not heavy at all. It has no rough edges and was more beautiful than we'd hoped.

 

[me1234]

Mara-
Thanks so much for the reply. My girlfriend tried one on last night. I did like it and was curious as to whether or not you can play around with the size of the stones that go all around. When you say pave, does that mean that the diamonds are set in a track vs. each indivdually pronged? She liked the individual pronged better and for whatever reason did not like the track setting. That price also seems like a great deal. If I ended up going this route, I really want to not spend too much $ on the band. $2K seems like a great deal. What width would you recommend with a center stone around 1.6-1.7?

 

[Mara]

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On 7/29/2003 1:43

1 PM me1234 wrote:
Mara-
Thanks so much for the reply. My girlfriend tried one on last night. I did like it and was curious as to whether or not you can play around with the size of the stones that go all around. When you say pave, does that mean that the diamonds are set in a track vs. each indivdually pronged? She liked the individual pronged better and for whatever reason did not like the track setting. That price also seems like a great deal. If I ended up going this route, I really want to not spend too much $ on the band. $2K seems like a great deal. What width would you recommend with a center stone around 1.6-1.7?----------------

Pave is actually not either pronged nor 'track set'...track set sounds more like a 'channel' setting and pave means that you have tiny melee type stones (say .01c or so) that are set into the band with tiny bits of metal to hold them in place. No prongs really, just stones mixed with metal holders. It's not a super secure type setting, but looks very beautiful because it ends up looking like a 'road of diamonds' with minimal metal. The prong adds more metal but also more safety. However since I wanted the pave look (more stone than metal visible), I requested the tiniest prongs possible to hold in the stones safely. For custom, you can do whatever you want, that's part of the fun of it!

Track setting sounds like channel setting which is where individual diamonds are set against each other (usually with no metal in between) in a straight channel (two bars of metal..top and bottom), using the tension to hold the stones in. I have been told it's not a super secure setting either, and I personally am not a fan of channel settings, but many people do like them. Normally channel set melee stones would be larger...say around .03-.05 or even larger..sometimes up to .10c--then you use less stones.

My center stone visually is 1.35c with .03c melee stones around the band. The band itself is around 2.5-2.6mm. So using mine as a base...IF you like the way mine looks (ratio-wise), then maybe for a 1.6 or 1.7c stone you'd want something like .04 or .05 stones in the band. If you keep something like the .03c stones but want a wider band, then you'd have more metal around the stones which is what I did not want, too much metal. So I asked for stones that fit as close as possible into a 2.5mm setting to keep the metal to a minimum. If I got .02c stones and still wanted 2.5mm..there would have been larger prongs and more metal. Hope that makes sense. Or if you want the center stone to appear HUGE, stick with a thinner band like mine. You would stick with around the same melee stones ctw and the center stone would really pop out and probably look more like a 2c than the 1.7. People always think my stone is a 1.5 because of the width of the thinness of the band and the fact that its got a slightly higher head, rising above the band to make it look bigger. I would also suggest 4 prongs, and make the prongs as thin as possible (no chunky Tacori prongs!) to emphasize the look of the stone.

Oh and the other thing we wanted to be sure of was that the wedding ring (eternity set with .03c stones to match the e-ring) would sit flush with the e-ring. So this is why our head was created higher..so that the wed ring would sit against the e-ring with no gap. If you don't require a flush look, you can have the head set lower, though personally after having owned a slightly higher head...I really like the emphasis it places on the center stone. And I hardly ever bang it on anything!

(knock on wood)

Hope that helps!

 

[me1234]

Mara, thanks so much for the help. We looked again last night and found another setting she really likes, similar to yours, but it has a small round stone underneath the center solitaire (Scott Kay design). Have you seen these? What do you think?

 

[Mara]

I'm not familiar with the setting you mention, do you have a picture? Small diamond under the center stone, somewhat like a 'surprise' diamond?

 

[trichrome]

Pave can be done with regular stones (even 5 pointers without a problem).
It is as safe as channel set without a doubt. It all depends on how good
is your goldsmith.

It's the sexiest type of setting out there !

Trichrome.