a special re-purpose

For a while now Brandon has had his Mom and Dad's wedding rings from when they were married, waiting to do something special with them. He recently had the idea to melt down the gold and make them into two crosses, one for him and one for his full-sister Chelsey. 

Over Christmas break my Dad helped him make the crosses using the dental equipment and resources he has used to make jewelry in the past. 

To make the whole process easier they took a cast of a crucifix that Brandon got while we were in Rome, and used that as the model. They made a mold of the cross, and then filled the mold with black wax. Brandon then cleaned up the new molds and they took them to the dental lab in town to have the metal cast (since there was a limited amount of gold they wanted the lab's precision and expertise).

At the lab they melted down the rings, made a cone shaped mold around the wax crosses, melted out the wax and spun in the melted gold. 

One of my biggest IDIOT moments EVER is that I forgot to take a before photo of the wedding rings! It all happened so fast, I didn't go along to the lab and I just completely forgot. We looked around in Pella over Christmas and couldn't find any photos of their rings either. Based on my memory of what they looked like, I made this quick sketch. They were gold, and if I remember correctly, were etched with a pattern similar to this.

BEFORE:

AFTER: