Jewelry restoration requires sevcral technical steps in order to bring each piece as close as possible to its original condition. Many processes are used to restore jewelry, including cleaning, polishing, replacing lost stones or re-cutting chipped diamonds and gemstones, repairing broken and worn prongs, thickening bezel walls, fixing bent shanks, replacing worn or broken shanks, engraving, applying filigree or millegraining, even removing incorrect "repairs" and poorly performed solder seams.
Below are a few examples of some of these processes, all performed by The Jewelry Restoration Expert.
This circa 1910 Art Deco ring was fully restored. The "before" pictures illustrate some of the problems with the piece, such as 18K yellow gold solder on prongs, heavily worn prongs and walls, poor polish and lost texturing (millegraining). After restoration, this ring's life has been prolonged by another 100 years and looks like it might have on its original owner's wedding day.
Before restoration, the side galleries, which are the most exposed to wear and tear, had been reduced to tiny nicks and bumps. With years of antique jewelry experience, the Jewelry Restoration Expert made an educated guess as to the original pattern and hand engraved the ring for a crisp finish.
This circa 1900 edwardian platinum topped gold ring had so little platinum holding its diamonds in, that one had already fallen out. A matching Old European Cut stone was sourced and set into the ring and all the settings were rebuilt with fresh platinum. 18K white gold solder from previous attempts at repair, as seen on the left, were removed from the ring.
After over 100 years of adornment, the shank on this ring was too thin to wear. A fresh 18K yellow gold shank was welded onto the ring. It is the client's decision whether or not to install the original hallmarks and maker's marks onto the new shank.