How it’s made

One section at a time.

Raw stone, a triangle mold and a ring on the bench

A metal band with pockets, a different material fitted and bonded into each one at a time, then shaped and polished until metal and inlay read as one surface.

At the bench

Five steps

  1. The workshop bench
    01

    The sections are the plan.

    The core arrives already divided — on the current work, thirteen triangular sections. Which material goes in which section is decided before anything is cut.

  2. Cut stone sorted on paper
    02

    Each material is prepared for its section.

    Cut and fitted to one pocket at a time. Stone is not uniform; fitted by hand, the variation is the character of the piece.

  3. Raw stone, a triangle mold and a ring
    03

    Each section is inlaid and bonded.

    The fitted material is set into its pocket and bonded with CA glue — then the next section, a different material. On the Prismatic Mosaic, thirteen times.

  4. A rotary tool shaping a ring
    04

    Shaped back into one surface.

    The excess comes down until stone, coral, opal, and steel meet at the same height all the way around.

  5. Ring under the microscope
    05

    Polished and finished.

    The final pass makes the surface read as a single object instead of a list of ingredients.

Before the inlay

Every inlay ring starts as a plain metal band — the core — with the sections the inlay will fill.

Core
Stainless steel, polygon profile: flat facets, so the band divides into flat, triangular sections.
Sand casting
Bold, textured work. Fast; the original pattern survives. Can’t hold undercuts.
Resin-print lost-wax
The precise route: a castable resin model holds within about a tenth of a millimetre.
On record
Which route a core took is recorded with the piece.

The ring this process produced.

Prismatic Mosaic