At The Goldsmith’s School where I did my training, after learning to set a stone, I was taught how to create a hollow ball or sphere.
There is some danger involved – once you have cut out two circles, domed them to be exactly half of the diameter that you require, you solder the two halves together, and because there is a hollow space in the middle of the ball that you are closing, the risk is that the ball explodes as you are soldering it. This hasn’t happened to me, but I always wear my protective glasses just in case!
This ring was not born from my own idea, as I borrowed the concept from a beautiful piece I bought years ago from a jeweller who had a stand at the Brunswick Street Markets – I have seen this notion replicated in many places however, and it is a simple smithing concept. I try not to look at other people’s work these days, as I would hate to accidentally plagiarise someone’s original creation! There is nothing new under the sun they say, but I like ideas to grow organically inside my own imagination. And I do have plenty of them!
