Remember “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”? Poor Goldilocks found the porridge first too hot, then too cold and finally just right. That fairy tale came to mind recently when I encountered an issue with a client’s ring size. That raises the question, “Is there any such thing as ‘just right’ in a ring size?” The answer is complicated.
What does this elusive “just right” size feel like to you – a little loose, a little snug? All the time? At night? In the morning? Actually, it should feel comfortable most of the time. But how can you even define most of the time? You can see that there are many variables affecting the right choice for you.
So, what are those variables? They can be weather, travel, season, diet, even walking and what you do with your hands.
For example: You’ve hopped on a plane and arrived in Phoenix on a balmy eighty-five degree day. After gathering your luggage, you head to your hotel where a beautiful Margarita (with a rim full of salt) is waiting for you. Did I mention you had chips and salsa, too? The next day, after an evening of enjoying the culinary delights of Scottsdale, you decide it is time to shop and end up, late in the morning, at French Designer Jeweler.
Alex Sepkus rings have been calling your name for quite a while so you’re anxious to try on a few. Unexpectedly, the issue of swollen fingers and hands crops up. You’ve always worn a size 7 but today you are sizing to a 7 ½ or larger! What the heck?
Let’s explain a few of those variables. First, your hands tend to swell in warm weather. Second, you sat on an airplane for quite a while, which is known to cause swelling in hands and feet. Third, you consumed (and enjoyed) some tasty but salty foods and last, but not least, you have been walking around.
What is not a variable? The shape of your fingers. Some of us have “tipi” fingers – the base is larger than the knuckle. And some of us have, due to aging or medical issues or injuries, fingers that are larger at the knuckle. Some of us have worn a ring for so long on a particular finger that you have “topiaryed“ your finger – you know that indentation on your finger that seems permanent.
HOW DO YOU FIND YOUR RIGHT SIZE:
Because finding the “right” size can be challenging, you will have better results if you go to an experienced jeweler, someone with the appropriate tools to measure your finger. To ensure the right size, a professional jeweler will use three tools: a mandrel, metal rings of full and half sizes and calipers.
A mandrel is a long, tapered metal rod, etched with quarter size measurements, allowing a jeweler to discover the size of an existing ring.
The one I use in our gallery is only used for checking ring sizes. But French uses several different mandrels when hammering and shaping a ring. One has a groove down the length of it to use when working with a center stone ring. To check an existing ring size for one of his prospective collectors, Alex Sepkus told us to use a specific brand. It’s that important.
Additionally, you will also need to know if the ring is sized to “the center” or to the “leading edge”. We are going to get into semantics here. “To the center” is self-explanatory. “Leading edge”, according to a professional jeweler, is the front of the ring when you slide it onto a ring mandrel. The non-professional (me) refers to it as the bottom of the ring when you slide it onto the ring mandrel. You can see why your jeweler should know a thing or two about sizing.
Also essential to the “just right size” are the sets of metal bands called finger gauges which come in varying widths and diameters. We use several ranging from 2mm to 7mm wide. The width of the ring matters here. When looking for the correct size for a ring with a width up to 4mm you will want to measure with the narrow ring gauge. For most, but not all, Alex Sepkus rings, we use the 4mm ring gauges. In case you are wondering, the difference in the diameter between a whole ring size is 0.8mm and each half ring size is 0.4mm.
The final essential measuring device is the caliper which measures the distance in inches or millimeters between two sides.
I am sharing all this information because no one wants to learn the hard way that different brands or manufacturers of equipment may have subtle and still important variations. We recommend that you double check your measurements.
Here’s how to do that: First, ask the jeweler to use the tips of the caliper to measure the inside of the finger gauge and write that down for you. That gives you the size of the finger gauge as it sits on your finger, and you know the interior diameter.
Additionally, ask that the finger gauge be put on the ring mandrel to see if both the mandrel and finger gauge match.
So here we are, back at our original question, “HOW SHOULD A RING FIT?”
Your ring should go on more easily than it comes off. If your finger is larger at the base, the ring should fit snuggly without leaving an indentation. If your finger is larger at the joint, then the ring needs to be large enough to slip over the joint, but not so large that it comes off easily. It’s a tricky balance. To help you get a sense of this, I need to twist my rings a couple of times to get them off, but when I wash my hands, they don’t slide off. Voilà – just right!
As a side note, I have read repeatedly, that the best time of day to find your “just right” size is mid to late afternoon. And make sure that the finger you size is the one that the ring is going to be worn on. Your fingers are not interchangeable.
You are probably aware that the fingers on your dominant hand are larger than on your non-dominant hand. As a rule, the difference will be about a half size larger. And another detail to know is that a wide band will frequently feel a little tighter than a narrower one and might take some getting used to. And the wider the band the larger the opening has to be.
Just keep in mind that if your ring is easy to get off, then it is easy for it to come off when least expected. One client thought she had lost a ring only to find it sometime later in a pair of gloves jammed into her coat pocket. Sadly, too, we’ve replaced several rings lost while swimming in the ocean.
Falling off isn’t the only problem. We gain weight, or we have a medical condition that swells our fingers to the point of cutting off circulation. Don’t wait until it comes to cutting a ring off. Medical bills can be really expensive, certainly more than the cost of resizing your ring.
Remember, finding “just the right size” is an imperfect science. Some days your ring will fit perfectly and other days it will feel too tight and still others your ring will move up and down your finger. Don’t be discouraged. It happens to all of us.
So, like Goldilocks, be particular and take the steps which will ensure that your favorite new ring will be sized “just right”. It’s definitely worth the trouble!
A disclaimer: I wrote this as a lay person, not a goldsmith, who is learning everyday about the fine art of jewelry. When in doubt always consult an experienced jeweler.
What does this elusive “just right” size feel like to you – a little loose, a little snug? All the time? At night? In the morning? Actually, it should feel comfortable most of the time. But how can you even define most of the time? You can see that there are many variables affecting the right choice for you.
So, what are those variables? They can be weather, travel, season, diet, even walking and what you do with your hands.
For example: You’ve hopped on a plane and arrived in Phoenix on a balmy eighty-five degree day. After gathering your luggage, you head to your hotel where a beautiful Margarita (with a rim full of salt) is waiting for you. Did I mention you had chips and salsa, too? The next day, after an evening of enjoying the culinary delights of Scottsdale, you decide it is time to shop and end up, late in the morning, at French Designer Jeweler.
Alex Sepkus rings have been calling your name for quite a while so you’re anxious to try on a few. Unexpectedly, the issue of swollen fingers and hands crops up. You’ve always worn a size 7 but today you are sizing to a 7 ½ or larger! What the heck?
Let’s explain a few of those variables. First, your hands tend to swell in warm weather. Second, you sat on an airplane for quite a while, which is known to cause swelling in hands and feet. Third, you consumed (and enjoyed) some tasty but salty foods and last, but not least, you have been walking around.
What is not a variable? The shape of your fingers. Some of us have “tipi” fingers – the base is larger than the knuckle. And some of us have, due to aging or medical issues or injuries, fingers that are larger at the knuckle. Some of us have worn a ring for so long on a particular finger that you have “topiaryed“ your finger – you know that indentation on your finger that seems permanent.
HOW DO YOU FIND YOUR RIGHT SIZE:
Because finding the “right” size can be challenging, you will have better results if you go to an experienced jeweler, someone with the appropriate tools to measure your finger. To ensure the right size, a professional jeweler will use three tools: a mandrel, metal rings of full and half sizes and calipers.
A mandrel is a long, tapered metal rod, etched with quarter size measurements, allowing a jeweler to discover the size of an existing ring.
The one I use in our gallery is only used for checking ring sizes. But French uses several different mandrels when hammering and shaping a ring. One has a groove down the length of it to use when working with a center stone ring. To check an existing ring size for one of his prospective collectors, Alex Sepkus told us to use a specific brand. It’s that important.
Additionally, you will also need to know if the ring is sized to “the center” or to the “leading edge”. We are going to get into semantics here. “To the center” is self-explanatory. “Leading edge”, according to a professional jeweler, is the front of the ring when you slide it onto a ring mandrel. The non-professional (me) refers to it as the bottom of the ring when you slide it onto the ring mandrel. You can see why your jeweler should know a thing or two about sizing.
Also essential to the “just right size” are the sets of metal bands called finger gauges which come in varying widths and diameters. We use several ranging from 2mm to 7mm wide. The width of the ring matters here. When looking for the correct size for a ring with a width up to 4mm you will want to measure with the narrow ring gauge. For most, but not all, Alex Sepkus rings, we use the 4mm ring gauges. In case you are wondering, the difference in the diameter between a whole ring size is 0.8mm and each half ring size is 0.4mm.
The final essential measuring device is the caliper which measures the distance in inches or millimeters between two sides.
I am sharing all this information because no one wants to learn the hard way that different brands or manufacturers of equipment may have subtle and still important variations. We recommend that you double check your measurements.
Here’s how to do that: First, ask the jeweler to use the tips of the caliper to measure the inside of the finger gauge and write that down for you. That gives you the size of the finger gauge as it sits on your finger, and you know the interior diameter.
Additionally, ask that the finger gauge be put on the ring mandrel to see if both the mandrel and finger gauge match.
So here we are, back at our original question, “HOW SHOULD A RING FIT?”
Your ring should go on more easily than it comes off. If your finger is larger at the base, the ring should fit snuggly without leaving an indentation. If your finger is larger at the joint, then the ring needs to be large enough to slip over the joint, but not so large that it comes off easily. It’s a tricky balance. To help you get a sense of this, I need to twist my rings a couple of times to get them off, but when I wash my hands, they don’t slide off. Voilà – just right!
As a side note, I have read repeatedly, that the best time of day to find your “just right” size is mid to late afternoon. And make sure that the finger you size is the one that the ring is going to be worn on. Your fingers are not interchangeable.
You are probably aware that the fingers on your dominant hand are larger than on your non-dominant hand. As a rule, the difference will be about a half size larger. And another detail to know is that a wide band will frequently feel a little tighter than a narrower one and might take some getting used to. And the wider the band the larger the opening has to be.
Just keep in mind that if your ring is easy to get off, then it is easy for it to come off when least expected. One client thought she had lost a ring only to find it sometime later in a pair of gloves jammed into her coat pocket. Sadly, too, we’ve replaced several rings lost while swimming in the ocean.
Falling off isn’t the only problem. We gain weight, or we have a medical condition that swells our fingers to the point of cutting off circulation. Don’t wait until it comes to cutting a ring off. Medical bills can be really expensive, certainly more than the cost of resizing your ring.
Remember, finding “just the right size” is an imperfect science. Some days your ring will fit perfectly and other days it will feel too tight and still others your ring will move up and down your finger. Don’t be discouraged. It happens to all of us.
So, like Goldilocks, be particular and take the steps which will ensure that your favorite new ring will be sized “just right”. It’s definitely worth the trouble!
A disclaimer: I wrote this as a lay person, not a goldsmith, who is learning everyday about the fine art of jewelry. When in doubt always consult an experienced jeweler.