Our Bentwood Rings
The Rules:
Every Bentwood wearable you can -or will- find in our shop, must:
1) Carry a strong visual value, a value that will represent the shop. That's why we intervene a lot on your custom orders.
2) Be comfortable to wear. This is sometimes part of the design process AND ALWAYS a part of the crafting process - it needs knowledge, experience, accuracy and time.
3) Be unique: wood, by nature is a great material when uniqueness is desired.
4) Last FOREVER
The Process:
Every single one of our bentwood rings, is crafted individually, in a long and delicate process.
We start by cutting veneer stripes, and wet them so they bent without the fear of breaking.
For the gluing, we go the "slow-way" which means adding glue step-by-step to the whole surface while wrapping it to a rough ring shape. We use super-thin CA glue that penetrates the wood and fills all of its volume. The result is insanely strong. It is not glued wood veneer , its a mass of wood fiber (strong by nature) and glue.
The quick-way would be to add glue to the pre-rolled bentwood only to the sides. With this method is way faster, but there is no guarantee that the glue will penetrate all of the wood. So weak areas may appear.
We cannot emphasize enough our trust on the structural integrity of our rings. Even the slimmest of our slim-liners, with the proper treatment, WILL LAST FOREVER. We ABSOLUTELY TRUST that a piece will need care or refinishing much less often than a e.g. silver piece would. When we find a secure and clean way to offer a warranty, we will.
Then we turn the wood on the wood lathe, bringing it to the desired size, dimensions and shape. This is a step that also requires a lot of care, since it is our obsession to follow the original design. So 10 mm is actually 10 mm and not 9.5 mm. The sides must be always equal, and the curves symmetrical. At this stage, we check the ring regularly and closely, looking for structural or aesthetic inconsistencies. If there is a problem or error, the piece is thrown away, and we start over with a new stripe. Even on a well glued and turned piece, if wood patterns/stripes don't come out as desired, the piece will be re-started.
The next stage is according to the design, This might mean carving a channel to accept infill elements ( stone, glass, metal, bones, resins etc). or wrapping more wood (for a double bentwood ring), wrapping metal wire around it (like on our Silver Rose Rings), attaching silver elements on to it, etc.
-different designs have different challenges. On infilled rings, the process usually involves infilling "manually" the crushed material into the channel, aiming for ...randomness. Going for the fully random for the sake of speed - mixing their material and it's dust and then throw it in the channel with glue, can easily lead to failure, even on a proved design. Many times, the bits, of the material used, are hand-chosen one by one, which leads to successful "random patterns". Then placed in the channel with the prediction of how will it look when cut or sanded to the final shape?
Below you can read more about the process of attaching silver on to wood.
Finishing the Ring
This is another long process. First we cover the wood with many layers of CA glue, never less than 8. In between each application, we sand, clean and check the ring for problems like trapped dust, anything that can alter the desired result. CA brings out the tones of the wood, as well as the problems. This creates a strong shield against weather and water, and of course up to a point this protects the ring against scratches. When going for a rough finish though, this layer is sanded to minimum. On rings that we have built more than 2+ years ago, no discolorations or other problems were detected. We can still not guarantee that there wont be problems in e.g. 10 years -when properly treated of course. That's why we always suggest a mid of high gloss finish for our bentwood products. On both these finishes the wood is fully enclosed in a relatively thick layer of CA , offering the maximum protection. For our mahogany and walnut projects we usually go mostly for a mid-gloss finish, since glossiness can hide beautiful details of the wood. African Padouk though looks amazing with a high-gloss finish.
Bentwood with silver Elements on it
We never use just glue to hold silver elements on our bentwood rings. Actually glue is used only as a secondary measure towards rigidity and immortality. And this is only if it can be invisible.
The real strength comes from the structure. There is ALWAYS a structural join between the two elements. We use various design solutions that make sure that the pieces will stay together. On the pics, you can see some of our methods for the best -visual and structural- result. In short, no matter the method used, there will always be a strong "bite" of the metal to the wood
