So now that I’m engaged, I have a ring I wear all the time. As an artist, I’m constantly doing stuff with my hands that makes me nervous with the ring on, but I have a paranoia about losing the ring. I figure the ideal thing would be to have a chain around my neck and put the ring there when I can’t wear it on my finger.
What I don’t want is to have to undo the clasp of the chain all the time to put the ring on/take it off. I was thinking of a couple of ideas… one would be a little carabiner type thing. Like a jewelry-sized one in a nice metal that wouldn’t look weird. Another thought I had was a sort of t-bar where the cross-bar of the T is much longer than the vertical, and the vertical, which is short enough to pass over the ring, is what attaches to the chain. You slide the ring all the way over the T (sideways) and then it can’t fall back off until you turn it sideways and back the ring up over the end again…
I realize I could always do the put the chain through the ring, then around the ring thing… but that would require a very thin and flexible chain and I’d worry that it would break…
Anyone have any ideas or know of a product designed for this?
You might find something that suits. You can get, say, a lobster claw clasp and either string it onto a necklace if its own clasp is small enough to go through, or have a jeweler attach it to a chain - it’d just take a second and wouldn’t cost much, plus you could be sure it was secure.
I have a necklace with the simplest fastening I’ve ever seen: on one end is a wire ring, and on the other is a doubled-over wire bent into a hook. Place hook through ring, and voila!
that doesn’t sound like something secure enough for me to trust my engagement ring to it…
I had thought about the lobster claw thing, but thought it might look too tacky… but some of those on that site romansperson linked to are quite nice. And those “bar and ring” things are exactly what I was talking about, only I’d toss the “ring” part… I wonder if the bar is long enough for what I need… ponders
I knew a photographer who dealt with a similar issue. She got a very small, old pocket watch on a chain like a pendant and removed the clockworks. So she could put her two rings safely inside it like a beefier locket.
ETA: It was kind of like this, but she gutted it, so she had the entire space that the actual time piece took up.
That is exactly what I was going to suggest. I have my grandmother’s pocket watch on a chain, and the slide has two tiny opals, two rubies and a sapphire (I think – I rarely wear it). You could wear the ring on an antique ladies’ watch chain. It’s secure enough for the watch, it would keep the ring safe.
The one the woman I knew had was, at most, 1.25" in diameter. It was definitely smaller than a man’s pocket watch. As for clonky, the way I knew what it was is because she leaned in over a light table to look through a loupe (so, she leaned in so close her nose was almost touching the table), and the watch made klunk! sound on the glass which startled me, but when that happened she’d tuck it into her shirt and it would stay out of the way. IIRC, the chain was long enough for her to keep it tuck in around her cleavage.
Not that I was staring at her cleavge or anything.
Yes, I was.
Hmm. Yeah that would probably be too big. I’m working around power tools and stuff and having something that could clonk out and suck me into the belt sander or something would be bad. I want something very small and unobtrusive, nothing big or heavy or that will be swinging around.
Well, I’m talking about a permanent solution. I’m an artist. This will probably continue for the rest of my life. I don’t want to make a paperclip part of my everyday ensemble.
Toggle closures depend on weight to work. The ring needs to be the heaviest part of the arrangement, so its pressure on the bars keeps them in place. So you’d want the chain and toggle bars to be light in comparison to the ring.
The key to the solution is be sure there is a week failure spot with anything you come up with so you don’t get drawn into machinery. A chain about the neck to hold the ring is a bad idea unless the chain breaks with little effort or the chain is a choker. Depending on the size of the ring you may manager to fit it in a locket. you may wish to have and artist make you a locket that can hold the ring, or even hold it while displaying it.
The clasp above - put one on each end of a chain that’ll fit snugly enough around your neck, and clip your wedding ring with both, making the ring a sort of pendant (picture a smaller version of the interlocked Olympic rings.) You can use a simple plain ring of about the same size as a placeholder for when your wedding ring is on your finger; you can leave that on when your wedding ring is on there, too. (If this doesn’t make sense, private message me and I’ll see if I can do a quick sketch.)
No, not at all. I’m not looking for a necklace clasp that will close the necklace and hold my ring. I’m looking for something to put on a necklace (that is fastened with its own clasp, elsewhere) that I can easily put a ring onto.
I’m also very uncomfortable with the locket idea. That doesn’t seem secure to me. I want the ring actually around something.
As for the chain getting caught in machinery, I’m envisioning a very short chain, not something dangly. I only mentioned it in connection with the watch thing because that isn’t the kind of thing you’d wear right at your throat and it sounded pendulous. The length I’m thinking of, my chin would hit the machine about the same time that any necklace would, so the necklace snagging would be the least of my problems.
I wouldn’t go with a toggle bar, honestly. The way they work is that the weight of the chain pulls the bar tightly against the ring part. Take the weight off and there’s nothing to keep the toggle in a straight line. The configuration in your illustration won’t work - that bar tips to one side or the other and your ring is history.
There MIGHT be a more secure toggle bar, though. I have to look, but I think in the Hills Tribes silver collection at Fire Mountain gems, they have a toggle that is more a U shape. Back in a second, if I can find a picture…
