A stone is selected, and a shape is drawn on it. It goes through grinding, shaping and polishing and ends up looking like the stone to the right of the slab. This particular piece is actually petrified wood.

 A bezel material is chosen, far left. It is wrapped around the stone and eventually gets soldered to a silver sheet, far right.

 A ring shank material is chosen. The material for this ring is 10 gauge, half-round wire. It gets wrapped around a ring mandrel to get the correct size.

 The two ends of the bezel material are filed flat to form a tight joint. It’s sanded to clean it prior to flux being applied, and then soldered together.

The bottom of the bezel gets sanded so it sits flat and tight against the base material. The base material also gets cleaned. Flux is then applied to the base, before the bezel gets set in place. Pieces of solder are cut and placed around the inside perimeter of the bezel. The pieces to be soldered get placed on a stainless steel wire coil and on a charcoal block to direct heat upwards, underneath the base. Heat is applied with a torch and the solder melts, forming a tight bond.  

 After soldering the bezel to the base, excess silver is cut away. The edges of the base got ground, filed, and sanded flush in this application. The ring shank was soldered to the underside of the base as well. This is how the ring looks after all of the soldering is completed. It goes into a pickle solution, which helps to remove the black fire scale which forms while heating it with a torch. A neutralizing bath follows that, and then it gets rinsed with water. Each time a part is soldered, it must go into the pickle solution, neutralizing solution, and get rinsed before another part can be soldered in place.

 The ring has been polished using brushes, pads and a buffing compound. This particular ring had its bezel textured with some delicate hand-hammering before it was polished. The stone was set, and a ring was born.