• Makers Gonna Mate

Because of her

In August 2017, I attended a "conference" in North Caroline -- or at least that is what I told Jessica. In fact, I was spending four days at Facet Foundry Jewelry Studio in Gastonia learning to make the ring I had been designing for the past few months! I even made a fake conference flyer in case Jessi got suspicious!

I decided that I wanted to design and well as make Jessi's ring. We are both in love with MIT, and want to wear our brass rats for the rest of our lives. The problem is that the brass rat is a little bulky for the type of jewelry Jessi wears. So, I actually melted down her gold brass rat to make her engagement ring. This way, she can wear it at all times.

I had pictures of her jewelry, sketched a ton of designs, and even sat outside Pavement Coffeehouse in Boston to get feedback from people in exchange for buying them coffee. Ben Messer from Facet Foundry then CADded my design, and after a few iterations, I booked a flight.

I was probably the most annoying customer Facet Foundry has ever had. But I walked in with my GoPro and digital camera, my gold, and 72 hours to spend in their shop making this thing from scratch.

You can see the full proposal video on the proposal page.

You first start with studying her current jewelry and designing a ring in Rhino that matches her current pallette

You then 3D print a few samples and let them cure in a home made incubator (really, two cheap nail polish curing stations facing each other.

Next, make a plaster mold using your wax. Place the container in an oven to melt out the wax and leave the negative of your ring.

You then pray that you are doing everything correctly, melt her gold brass rat, and fling it into the negative mold. Dip the mold in water, and you are left with a rough gold ring =)

Polish for about 5 hours to really get some shine, place the individual diamonds, freak out when you lose one, spend about an hour looking for it on the floor, find it, and try again.

Then, hope she says yes!