Knox Jewelers Journal
Diamond Setter Needed – Minneapolis – Employment Opportunity
Knox Jewelers is currently looking for a highly skilled diamond setter to compliment our team of bench people and designers at our Minneapolis Store.
We focus primarily on custom design and our bridal production line. We take in a very limited amount of repairs and do not do any watch work.
Examples of what we do can be seen here on our website.
The right person for this position will have top level skills in all phases of diamond setting, hand-engraving and fabrication experience, as well as related bench skills.
This is a full-time in-house position only. We are not looking for outside help or contract work. No exceptions.
Highly competitive pay package. Benefits. Paid Vacation.
Inquiries can be made using our Contact Us form.
Tags: Diamond Setter, Employment, Jeweler, Jewelry, Job | Categories: Jewelry
Engagement Ring Photos and the Importance of Real Photography
As we approach 6000 “real” photos of engagement rings and wedding bands, we’re reminded of all the work we’ve done in getting our designs on this very website. It’s important to understand that our quality and workmanship have to be top-notch when photographing at the macro level. Our jewelers and craftsmen must execute with the same passion as our designers. It takes years of experience across these many dedicated individuals to deliver a quality piece, something that a virtual image will never convey.
Sometimes we wish our photos could be produced by the touch of a button. It would be much easier to generate 6000 perfect computer renderings and not worry about capturing the countless hours of detail and passion put into our pieces. One slight problem, our customers don’t wear virtual rings.
Photograph taken of Caledonia Design - Unique Engagement Rings
The key to our business is heirloom quality unique engagement rings. The designing is only half of the battle. The craftsmanship yields the end product and is where we really shine as you can see in every one of our engagement ring photos. Our designs are handmade and given meticulously attention to in every detail. How would anyone be able to see our quality if our collection was all computer generated? The diamonds still have to be precisely set, the metal still has to be polished smooth, and the engraving still has to be cut by hand.
Our customers come to us because they want to cherish the beauty and art put into everyone of our designs. They don’t want the same design that has been made ten thousand times by an overworked, underpaid worker overseas. They want unique, they want one-of-a-kind, and they want heirloom quality.
Virtual jewelry only shows 50 percent of any given design. It’s a mere concept of how a design should look. The design still has to executed into a beautiful piece of art and that feat takes years of experience. Quality and craftsmanship come with no easy button.
Tags: craftsmanship, engagement ring photos, quality, render, virtual | Categories: Unique Custom Design Engagement Rings
Sapphire Engagement Rings
At Knox Jewelers, we have been creating more and more Sapphire Engagement Rings in many design styles, some of which are:
- Antique Style Sapphire Engagement Rings
- Contemporary Sapphire Engagement Rings
- Fancy Shape Sapphire Engagement Rings
- Solitaire Sapphire Engagement Rings
- Three Stone Sapphire Engagement Rings
- Custom Sapphire Engagement Rings
- Micro Pave Sapphire Engagement Rings
- Split Shank Sapphire Engagement Rings
- Hand Engraved Sapphire Engagement Rings
- Unique Sapphire Engagement Rings
Here are a few photos of rings we have made with links to the product page of the design.
Click on the images to go to the respective ring’s product page for additional photos and info.
This sapphire engagement ring features hand engraving and platinum filigree on a half bezel set design.
Purple Sapphire in Knox Seville Design
This sapphire engagement ring features a low set cushion cut yellow sapphire mounted around diamonds, hand engraving, and yellow gold filigree.
Yellow Cushion Sapphire in Knox Barcelona Design
Our bezel elegante design is shown with a bezel set sapphire engagement ring with a beautiful blue sapphire. This halo engagement ring style is featured throughout our website with different center stones; such as diamond, sapphire, and moissanite.
Blue Cushion Cut Sapphire in Knox Bezel Elegante Design
This custom engagement ring features a celtic knot pattern holding a rich blue sapphire.
Blue Oval Sapphire in Knox Custom Design Engagement Ring
More to come soon… please stop back.
Tags: sapphire engagement rings | Categories: Unique Custom Design Engagement Rings
Hand Engraved Ring Designs
Hand engraving on jewelry and other metal objects is a very specialized art form in and of itself and when skillfully placed on an already high quality ring, can make for an absolutely unique and heirloom quality piece of jewelry.
The actual engraving is done with an extremely sharp tool called a graver. The graver is used to carefully carve a pattern or design into the metal, leaving no room for error. The artisan that does the hand engraving will have various sizes, shapes, and angles of gravers that they use for different effects/designs. The cutting into the metal with the graver is often (but not always) facilitated by small hand held pneumatic devices that are essentially small pneumatic hammers.
What is Cast in Place engraving or CAD-CAM engraving?
It is important to differentiate between actual hand engraving and the much more commonly found cast in place engraving or CAD-CAM engraving in which a design or pattern is placed in the wax or prototype of the item being cast to give the look or effect of hand engraving.
Here are a few examples of cast in place engraving or CAD-CAM engraving.
Example #1 of cast in place ‘engraving’
Example #2 of cast in place ‘engraving’
Example #3 of cast in place ‘engraving’
Is it possible to tell the difference between hand engraving and cast in place engraving?
The quick answer is no, a novice may not always be able to tell the difference.
While even a novice may be able to tell the difference between extreme examples from both methods, (the example photos used here are classic examples of the representative methods) please note that there will be many examples from both methods that may be virtually indistinguishable from each other when looking at merely photos, especially to a novice.
That said, the predominant indication of cast in place/faux engraving will be a ’smoothed out’ or ‘polished down’ look to the detailing in the pattern as opposed to a much sharper or crisper pattern in hand engraved designs.
Here are a few examples of actual ‘Hand engraved’ designs. Notice the sharpness and crispness of the detailing in the patterns.
Example #1 of a hand engraved design
Example #2 of a hand engraved design
Example #3 of a hand engraved design
Example #4 of a hand engraved design
Example #5 of a hand engraved design
Please visit our web site here:
Tags: hand engraved, hand engraving, Unique | Categories: Jewelry, Unique Custom Design Engagement Rings
Unique Engagement Ring Styles – Filigree
Unique Engagement Rings
What exactly is filigree?
Filigree is fine and delicate ornamental work done in platinum or gold wire.
Filigree can be located on the shank or crown portion of the ring.? It can be used as a main, accent, or complementary design element. ? By definition, filigree is wire work done by hand.? While it’s very common to see mass produced pieces with cast in place filigree, only true hand wrought wire can be considered as such. Hand curled filigree is an extremely skilled and tedious task as the wire used is often under half of a millimeter or the thickness of 3-4 pieces of paper.? It takes a steady hand in welding wire to a ring and is often done under a 10X microscope to ensure proper contact and alignment.
The design pictured above uses filigree to hold several very light blue ceylon sapphires.
Tags: antique, Engagement, filigree, Rings, Unique | Categories: Jewelry
