Quick Fix for Rings with Cracked Stones

Recently, I knowingly bought a class ring with a severely cracked stone. It's the type of class ring that has a hollow back behind the stone & an ornament that is riveted through the stone. Those doggone ornaments that are set in the ring's stone are the top part of the ring that gets hit first. The thin 'stones' they are riveted through frequeently break, especially in antique gold class rings.

I wanted this particular ring so much because it has very sentinmental value; so I didn't care at all about the stone having three long cracks that make the (medical) ornament pierced through the stone quite loose. I know this problem isn't rare because I've seen many school rings that have very similar problems. What I didn't realize is that there is a very quick & inexpensive fix for this.

Here's what I did that makes my cracked stone look perfect:

I got a long stem candle with the same color of wax as the stone's color. Lit the wick of the candle. Turned the ring upside down. Then, tilted the candle so that the drops of melting wax would drip into the hollow ring back where the stone is pierced by the ornament rivets. I allowed the hollow 'well' fill up with candle wax. Then I ran the whole ring under cold tap water in my kitchen sink.

It is absolutely amazing! The stone looks PERFECT! The medical ornament attacked through the stone is no longer loose at all, either. In short, for my purposes of wanting to wear this ring all the time, it is fixed. I have no need to spend a dime to have a new small slab of artificial stone put it to replace this one.

The other benefit of using candle wax is that if I ever want to remove the wax from the ring's hollow back, all I have to do is run it under hot tap water for a few seconds & it was loosen enough to simply lift the whole plug of wax out, leaving no mess at all inside the ring.

The trick is to use a long stem candle. Using a a wider candle is too difficult to aim the dripping wax from into the back of the ring~