Weekly Update: Behind the Scenes of our Meteorite with Carbon Lining Ring

There are big changes currently happening here at Patrick Adair Designs. As some of our returning visitors can tell, we have recently transitioned to a new site; however, this is not the only major change. Our company recently relocated giving us room to start expanding. We have recently expanded to five employees. Patrick is accompanied by two full-time ring making employees, and two more employees who help behind the scenes. This expansion allows the company to not only ship orders quicker but also allows for Patrick to focus on putting out regular content.

Starting today, we are going to release YouTube videos on our channel Patrick Adair Designs every Saturday morning.  Accompanying our weekly video will be a weekly blog that will discuss the video and give any updates that our pertinent to our company. 

In this weeks video, Patrick made a meteorite ring with a carbon fiber lining. While the ring is similar to the meteorite ring in our video from a few months ago (a video that you should definitely check out if you haven't seen it), the process behind it was largely different. The first major change was that this meteorite ring blank required significantly less effort. Our friends at the Waterjet channel actually cut blanks for us and filmed it in a video after our initial meteorite ring video. This made making the meteorite portion of the ring significantly faster by allowing us the ability to skip using the drill and saw to create the blank. Cutting the blank to the correct dimensions was largely the same. We use the lathe to cut the the outside and inside to the proper dimensions. 

Putting a lining in our rings is something we haven't shown yet, that is quickly becoming one of our most popular requests when making custom rings. The lining is made by cutting a doughnut shaped piece of carbon fiber out using diamond coated hole saws for our drill press. This lining is then trimmed to the point that it is marginally larger than the inside of the meteorite blank using the lathe. The lining is then glued and pressed into the ring blank using our arbor press. Following this the lining is trimmed, and the ring is sanded and polished.

After all this, the ring is almost done. The only step left is the acid etching which is the most important step in creating the unique look of our meteorite rings. We treat the ring with acid and then neutralize the acid in a baking soda solution. The acid treatment is what creates the unique meteorite pattern. This pattern is created when the acid dissolves the different metals in each piece of meteorite at different rates. This leaves the long nickel-iron crystals visible on the ring which are the unique and defining feature of meteorite because nickel-iron crystals can only form at this length when slowly cooled over enormous periods of time. 

I hope you enjoyed the video and the behind the scenes explanation. If you are interested in purchasing one of our meteorite rings, click the link below:

https://patrickadairdesigns.com/products/meteorite-ring