Joe’s Wheel of Chaos and more chaos

 

Holiday rush is on.  Let’s start with some new pics of Tim’s turquoise OM ring.

 

That’s a Buddhist knot on the other side of the shank.  This was the kind of piece that I immediately wanted to make for myself.  It’s heavy, well-balanced, and finished with brushed metal.

 

But that isn’t all.  I’ve also been hacking away at two rings for Joe, a sea-going Marine.  This bad boy was created in my standard sterling silver, but finished with a brand new darkmetal.  It looks like hematite.  Lighter and a bit more hi-polished than my gunmetal, I’m going to be offering this now as a finish option.

 

That’s a wheel of chaos formed into a sort of compass on the forehead.

 

 

Those are old-school anchors on the side and it reads BLBS on the back of the shank for “By Land By Sea.”  Now Joe hasn’t approved this finish yet, so we may be trying something a bit different on her after he gets a chance to check it out.

Here’s his second ring:

Mystery Cave, baby.   One of my favorite rings.

Speaking of Mystery Caves…….

I’m making a new lower-jawed mystery cave for Sue.  She’s already an owner of one of my Little Voodoos and she’s come back with an awesome idea for a ring.  Here’s the wax in progress.

I’m shaping that nose into a little heart.  We’re going to incoorporate some very strong sugar skull imagery into it without breaking up the clean lines of the skull.  Sue, drop me a line and let me know how we’re doing here.

Turquoise dependent arising

 

 

It’s finally done.  Tim’s new ring is all set to go and ready to ship.   I’m not including the other side of this piece of work just yet since Tim wanted to be surprised.

Doing a ring like this, you just need to get the hell out of the way and let the stone do its job.  The lines are simple and clean, but still hand-carved.

 

That’s a brushed metal finish.  NICE.

I’ll post more shots after he gets it on his finger.  Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

Turqouise set

 

 

 

 

We’ve had a hard-reset on that signet ring I was working on.  The old wax was about an inch tall and Tim wanted to go a bit more compact so I had to start over.  Not complaining.  That’s what this process is all about.  Once it’s cast, we can’t do anything about that, but at this stage we still have a lot of flexibility.  Here’s the old wax:

 

It is kinda tall, right?  Here’s our new compact one:

 

    

 

I owe Dana Ruth a huge ‘thank you’ for selling me these square turquoise stones.  Damn, they’re hard to find.

I still have Tim’s old wax as well, so if anyone is looking for a square turquoise signet, I can do it at a discount since the base wax is already done.

Been busy.  Who knew skull rings were the gift of gifts for Xmas?  Can’t say I disagree.

Stay tuned for some righteous King Skullery.

 

 

Turquoise and Zen

Got a new Buddhist ring in the works for Tim.   Fleshing out the wax based on a stone he selected.  Very cool-looking turquoise actually.

 

That’s a real pale stone with some badass black spiderwebbing in it.

When I do a ring like this, the entire thing is built around the stone itself, so each one is made from scratch and can only be set with that exact stone.

 

 

You can see I’m starting to block out a Buddhist wheel on the shank.  We have a lot of custom carving to do, so stay tuned.

Jason over at Custom Mala Shop has also just sold two more pieces featuring my custom silver skull and enso.  His work is just amazing.

 

I took in a few more horror films while working on a new batch of rings.  Evil Dead 1 and 2, Night Wish, Brain Dead, and Nightmare on Elm Street.  I also saw Goolies, which I really need to write about at length when I have time.  Gotta keep on truckin’ here and try to get this new batch of Hellions finished.  Also getting close on Jonathan’s Boss Voodoo.

More soon!

Blackstone Complete

Tim’s Blackstone is finally finished and safe and sound in San Francisco.

I finished the cast this week and got to work on setting the stone, which took a while because of the rounded corners.  Proud to say I didn’t need any adhesive.  Elbow grease did the trick.

Best news of all was that Tim wanted a custom finish.  These are always a blast.  Anyway, the finished product is below:

Tim was very patient waiting for this bad boy.  He and I designed the entire ring together from scratch, so it took a while, but the results are great.  The ring is finished with a brushed metal look that really accentuates the hand-made qualities of the ring.  Most rings like this would be made by a machine nowadays.  Not this fella.

The side of the ring features a skull similar to that of my Death in the Desert turquoise ring.  The other side features a Buddhist wheel.

And the two sides are joined with a stylized femur bone and an “OM” text.  “Om” is hard to explain.  It’s a holy sound from Buddhism and Hinduism and has no direct translation into the English language.  Essentially it’s the sound of the universe.

Anyway, the result is great.  A full polish finish might have made this look more…well…polished…but that’s not what this ring is about.  It’s organic as hell and still perfectly balanced for comfortable wear.

Best thing is, the f’ker is fully custom.  You know how many of these exist? One.  And it belongs to Tim.  Still technically a skull ring, right?

OM

Final work done on the shank.  This bad boy is ready for my client’s final approval.

 

 

Let’s cast this sucker.

Blackstone shanks

Just finished a skull and a Buddhist wheel on the sides of this bad boy.  Posting some progress pics along with marker placement of the “OM” text.

I was hoping I could fit more letters, but now that the wax is done, We can only fit about 5 characters on the shank.

Tim- drop me a line and let me know how we’re doing.

Blackstone in place

It was a bastard of a time but I got that stone set in wax.  SO much easier with a perfect square.  This stone has a more organic shape, but as you can see it’s going to look great.

Tim, shoot me a line and let me know how we’re looking.

the Blackstone takes shape

Put in some hours on Tim’s custom stone ring.  The hard part is over.  This bad boy is sized, shaped, and ready for detail work.

Doing his kind of ring takes a lot of precision.  We’re not doing a straight square stone either.  The stone Tim has picked has rounded corners.

Tim also doesn’t want this ring to be a big clunker, so I’m taking care to keep the size down.

 

Doing a from-scratch custom ring like this takes a lot of time, but the heart of the ring is pretty much figured out at this point.  More to come.  Stay tuned.

This and That

Wrapped up two new projects – custom pieces for Travis and Bianca.   You should be able to tell who got what.

Sterling silver keychain.  Day of the Dead style.  Going to have to make myself one of these, I think.

Women’s bracelet.  I think that dangling pendant classes it up so it could be worn with a teeshirt and jeans or an evening gown.

I also got Tim’s stones in the shop for his custom ring.

Now we stil might end up with Onyx here, but these are some samples of dark granite that he might dig as well.  Let me know what you think, brother.  Im partial to the middle one, I think.