reshanking--crazy thought

[LibbyLA]

With two rings that need to be reshanked and the price for reshanking being sky-high, I've been doing some crazy thinking. I'm going to call my jeweler later today and see what he thinks.

I can get a 2mm plain comfort-fit platinum band off ebay for less than $230. If I'm lucky enough for both the rings that need to be reshanked to be platinum, I'll bet I can get a size 8 band and the jeweler can lop it in half and use that to reshank both rings. If one is platinum and the other is gold, it wouldn't be quite so cost-effective, but a white gold ring can be had for about $100. There's labor involved, but that's probably not much compared to the cost of materials.

Estimate for reshanking the white gold ring was $250-300 from a different jeweler and I think a lot of that cost was materials.

"Book price" for reshanking a platinum ring is close to $700 but my jeweler said it wouldn't be that much. He was going to investigate a couple of ways to get the material but maybe just buying a ring and sacrificing it would actually work out cheaper.

liz

 

[Enerchi]

It seems to make sense to me... but sometimes what seems logical to people not 'in the know', really turns out to be more trouble than it's worth! But I do totally agree with what you are proposing - get 1 ring/cut in half/fix 2 rings. Easy peasy... lets hope your jeweller thinks the same thing!

 

[LibbyLA]

Enerchi,

I'll talk to him later this morning to see if that would work. What gave me the idea was a post that I stumbled on here. Someone needed to reshank a ring and they ended up buying a narrow plain band and just soldering the old ring and the plain band together and wearing them that way.

This is a good excuse to visit the three pawnshops in my SO's town this afternoon. I doubt I'll find the right-sized plain band in platinum (and maybe white gold) or any OECs or OMCs, but I can look . If just using a new band for reshanking is a "go" then I'll know what price I can get new bands for on ebay and can compare if I find any possibilities locally.

liz

 

[LibbyLA]

Jeweler says that would work fine so I'll be off to the pawn shops this afternoon to see if there are any candidate donor rings. He won't be able to test the latest ring for platinum vs. gold until Tuesday but I can at least see if I can locate donors locally. If not, I'll order the platinum band this weekend.

liz

 

[Enerchi]

Hey that's great news! Who knew that the logical solution, would actually work! You had a brilliant thought there, Liz!!!

 

[LibbyLA]

Who knew that you could buy a whole new wedding ring for less than a replacement shank would cost? I guess it's a supply/demand thing.

Jeweler just called and says he hopes to get the ring tested for metal content this afternoon so I'll know whether I'm looking for only a platinum ring, or both platinum and white gold rings. I'll really be tickled if the new ring is platinum rather than white gold.

liz

 

[LibbyLA]

Jeweler says that there is only a small length of gold in the platinum ring, so he's going to remove that and use a longer piece of platinum, but the ring doesn't need to be reshanked. I've already paid for resizing so it isn't supposed to cost me any more than I've already paid. That's happy news.

The new wedding ring is probably white gold. I was able to pick up a size 6 2mm plain white gold half-round wedding ring at a nearby pawn shop for $50. Jeweler says that the ring doesn't need to be reshanked. It just needs a decent-sized part of the bottom replaced. I think he'll be able to use the ring I picked up for that even though it's not the right size. I'll drop it off Tuesday. Maybe I'll have my rings back in a couple of weeks.

The pawn shop had quite a few scrap gold rings but I think only a couple or three were white gold. I'm happy to have found one. The other two pawn shops I planned to visit were both closed.

liz

 

[Enerchi]

You are on a lucky streak!! great news - I love it when things work out beautifully. Makes up for the crappy times, doesn't it?

So, sounds like someone's gonna be sporting some new bling soon!

 

[Lotus99]

This sounds like a great solution! I hope it all goes well.

You've got me thinking about a solution to a problem I have with a broken ring. Thanks for sharing this.

The last time I passed one of our local pawn shops, its hours were M-F, 9-5. I found that really odd.

 

[lucyruth]

Brillliant!

 

[LibbyLA]

Enerchi: Yep, I do feel lucky to have found the donor ring at the one place. I didn't even try to dicker over the price. I was going to another shop to see if I could find one closer to my size, but they were close so I just snagged this one. I wasn't even sure I would find what I needed at one of the three pawn shops, so to find it at the only one that was open was a stroke of luck. I'll be able to take it to my jeweler Tuesday and he'll deliver the two rings to the bench guy Tuesday night.

Lotus99: Hope you come up with a way to get your broken ring fixed. It would be neat if someone's idea led me to a solution and my solution led you to one.

lucyruth: I'm fortunate that my jeweler is willing to work with me on novel solutions. He does seem to try to make repairs for as reasonable a price as possible. I visited another jeweler that has a laser welder on site and one one of the counter people looked at it, she said it would have to be reshanked, at a cost of $250 to $300. My jeweler looked at the ring and said it didn't need to be reshanked, it just needed about a quarter of the circumference replaced. When I talked to him later about using a donor ring, he said that if I could find one for $100 or less (could get a new one from ebay for $100) it would be cheaper to repair it that way than for him to use resizing stock.

My bargains aren't quite as good a bargains as they were if they didn't need work but I will enjoy wearing them and the total price still will be quite reasonable.

liz