Gold men’s snake signet ring

The snake is a mythological animal of which we find traces in all ancient civilizations, from ancient Egypt with Apophis to the Vikings with the serpent deity Jörmungand or among the aborigines of Australia.

It is therefore logical that we have found numerous jewels of religious symbolism bearing the image of the serpent that are displayed in museums. And so, even today the image of the serpent is frequently found in the creation of jewellery. The major jewelry houses do not hesitate to reuse the image of the snake for their most recent creations. We also covered the topic this article related to snake jewelry.

The purpose of this article is to introduce you to the implementation of a 18k gold men’s snake ring decorated with a red garnet cabochon stone.

Signet style snake ring with relief engraving made by us personalized signet ring creation service

The snake ring design

Our client’s goal was to create a large 18k yellow gold signet ring featuring two intertwined snakes surrounding a large red garnet stone cut into a cabochon shape. The ring, large and large, must have been impressive. To do this he sent us some sketches of his project, sketches visible below.

These snake ring sketches served as a starting point for making this signet ring project.

With these designs we were asked to create a signet ring measuring 68.5 with an 18k gold weight of 25 grams.

We then produced various drafts of the ring, submitted for validation to the sponsor to arrive at the final design presented below.

This digital sculpture of the snake ring shows it to us from different angles in the form of virtual photos of the ring, as it would once have been made of 18k yellow gold

Make the ring

Once the digital model is finalized, it is used to 3D print the wax model of the snake ring. Our 3D printer prints 715 layers in 4.5 hours to physically materialize the ring which until then was only virtual.

As we can see, all the details of the snake’s head and its snake skin, so particular for this type of ring, are faithfully reproduced.

This ring wax model is used to make a refractory plaster mold. We fix our ring on a wax cylinder called a casting tree which is then embedded in liquid refractory plaster. Once dry, this plaster mold is incinerated to destroy the wax (which is eliminated by sublimation) which then releases the hollow imprint of the snake ring into the heart of the mold.

This is followed by pouring the molten liquid gold into the mold, the mold once cooled is destroyed to obtain the rough foundry snake ring as you see below.

View from two different angles of the gold snake ring showing the snake skin details on the body of the ring

The ring is then detailed, filed and polished before setting the garnet stone in the center of the ring. You will notice the setting size on the rough foundry ring which gives us room to adjust the red garnet stone to the desired height.

We can therefore admire the final rendering of the men’s snake ring, all in 18k solid gold.

This view allows you to clearly appreciate the color of the central red garnet of the ring which measures 12×10 millimetres

Weighing in at almost 27 grams including 4.25 carats for the garnet stone (0.85 grams), the gold weight target for the ring is met. On the right you can see the snake ring in its box.

This photo shows the size of the ring, which is still 26 millimeters long.

More examples of snake rings

Here are some examples of other snake ring designs, made in our workshop or by a museum.

Examples of gold snake rings from the Vivalatina collection

Ancient snake rings of Egyptian origin on display in the British Museum

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