Sustainability and Craftsmanship

    Sustainability

    At the heart of our wooden rings is the mission to create aesthetically beautiful things that are earth conscious and sustainable. We use wood because trees can regenerate and are renewable. Long after the wooden rings are well loved and worn, they will break down and return to the earth in a safe form.  We find that this is unlike metals and diamonds, which require harsh drilling and mining to extract. Don’t get us wrong, we don’t mind these materials, but prefer if they are ethically sourced.

    All of our rings are handmade and thus have little impact on the environment. Where we use electricity, solar power is utilised where possible to run the equipment. A lot of our wood derives from high quality furniture left overs that would otherwise go to waste. We source mostly from Australia where the owners Vasja and Nally currently reside, or from Slovenia, which is Vasja’s home country.

    As the Wooden Ring Store grows and so does our little baby Ela, we aim travel more around the world to source the different woods more locally from where the tree originates. We feel it would be really nice to be able to tell you exactly how and where (to the tree) we got the wood from. That is our goal.

     

    Craftsmanship

    Take a look at those photos below if you are interested in how we create our rings. Our rings are always rolled, never made out of a block of wood. That doesn’t seem intuitive but if you are interested, keep reading.

    In a nut shell: The rings are all made by bending a thin long strip of wood and rolling it into a tight cylinder. This is then bonded together and polished to make a ring. Rings made from this method are much more durable than ones made from a single piece of wood because it has the multiplied strength of the tightly wound layers of wood.

    In more detail: Firstly, I select a high quality piece of wood that looks nice and is appropriate for the ring you chose.

    The second step is to cut out a precise strip of wood. I then soak the veneer in hot water for easier bending, and wind it tightly onto a cylinder. Since I usually use hot water, I take the opportunity to make myself a nice cup of tea on the way. The wood usually dries over night so that it acquires the new shape and the tea is always delicious.

    After the wood is dry it needs to be glued together and again left alone for some time so that the bond strengthens into a forever lasting circle.

    From here on it is all about shaping the ring. I use lathe and rotary tool to give the ring’s general shape. Fine tuning is all done by hand. Finally, when the ring is the perfect shape it needs to be coated with several coats of protective finish and also polished.

    We only use wood and natural materials for our rings. Often some of those materials are gathered from the Australian great outdoors, while we are nature hiking or at the beach – like our seashells. There is no metal, precious prefabricated stones or other kinds of manufactured materials in our rings, unless you specifically ask for it. You can either send us the material you want incorporated or or we can try to course it ethically. The only thing that is not from nature is the adhesive that holds the ring together, as we have not managed to find a good natural one yet.

     

     

    That is how our rings are made. If you want to check them all out please click here or press the continue button below.