Lost a little weight recently and my wedding and college rings are loose enough I worry they may slip off.

If I go to a jeweler to resize, they'll have to shave off some bits of gold (14k and 18k, respectively) to reduce the ring size and reconnect.

Do they keep the removed gold? Give you credit?

Ask for it back.

Maybe shoot an email to Dave Truong & ask him.

I agree. Contact Dave he will do you right.
Would think a small credit would be the way to go if possible. My guess would be a small amount of cuttings.

Silly question, my friend. Can you use the extra gold to pay for the job?

Do you think it might be worth the trouble?

Absolutely, completely, fully, utterly and totally clueless. If you get my drift.

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If you lost weight wouldn't they have to make the inner diameter smaller, which would actually add material back in? If they removed material it would make the hole bigger.

It's your gold. You get it back.

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
If you lost weight wouldn't they have to make the inner diameter smaller, which would actually add material back in? If they removed material it would make the hole bigger.

They don't typically add material, I don't think. Maybe they do for slight adjustments. But to resize a ring down, they usually cut the band and remove that arclength, then bend the two endpoints back together and solder.

quote:

Originally posted by YellowJacket:

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
If you lost weight wouldn't they have to make the inner diameter smaller, which would actually add material back in? If they removed material it would make the hole bigger.

They don't typically add material, I don't think. Maybe they do for slight adjustments. But to resize a ring down, they usually cut the band and remove that arclength, then bend the two endpoints back together and solder.

This. And unless you lost an unbelievable amount of weight a saw blade or two in width is about all you would lose which wouldn’t amount to much even with the sky high gold prices.

Jeweler I use keeps the metal as payment for the labor - he also doesn't charge for metal or labor if a ring's size needs to be increased.

Had a situation last year where they did not give me my gold back (it was white gold, circa 1920s ring). I asked my dad (who’s pretty good with jewelry and such) and he said the same thing - that I should ask for it back, so I called them. They said oh yes, yes we still have it here come and get it, and it was a lump of gold. Now if I need to use it again to enlarge said same ring, I could!

Tangentially related: I lost my wedding ring when I started wearing scrubs in medical school--left it in the pocket when I scrubbed for surgery.
Almost 50 years later, we had a jeweler take my wife's very wide wedding ring which she never wore because of the width; he sawed it in two; added a little gold to the diameter to make one for me. Now we have two very nice rings from my wife's one wide ring, both narrow enough not to leave soap underneath when washing hands. Engraving added to one of them same as the original.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
Now we have two very nice rings from my wife's one wide ring

How nice!

Some wedding bands can be compressed, where they can take a half size without needing to cut any material out.
Larger reductions or more ornate rings need to be cut and have material removed for sizing. A quality jeweler would leave no trace of where this occurred.
As for the removed material, it seems to not matter as it washes out in the end. My wife has different sizes and has never paid more/less based on the size. Stone size, yes. Ring size, no.

I have a plain white gold wedding band. I had to have it resized quite a bit at one point because it was falling off. I don't remember all the details, but I watched them do it. It just compressed it down without removing any material, and it has been perfect ever since. Took them maybe two minutes and cost me a few bucks.

^^^
Same. The small shop where the Mrs. And I got our matched set shrunk mine down a bit for a tighter, less likely-to-lose-it fit. It was a neat machine with a ton of die sets for different size and shape. Obviously, rings sized like this can only be round and symmetrical ie- wedding bands.

Thanks, this is all good stuff!

14K symmetric wedding band might be suitable for the compression treatment. The other is definitely asymmetric and has inscriptions inside the band, most likely trickier to pull off.

Sounds like the best move is to bring up the removed-metal question during first discussions.

Do they melt it, reshape to smaller internal diameter, with the extra moved onto the external surface? That way, nothing is actually taken out.