Custom Design:

Teel Jewelers is a locally owned jewelry store in downtown Kalamazoo that specializes in custom jewelry design and jewelry repair. Do you need a ring as unique as your partner? We can help you with that! Do you have a loose gemstone that you got on vacation and want it set into a pendant? Done!

In the first steps of custom design, we want to learn about you (and your partner if we are doing wedding jewelry or gifts!). We want to incorporate features in the design as individual and unique as you (and your relationship). At this meeting we are looking at a few main things: your preferences, timeline, and budget. If you have family jewelry you want to incorporate we encourage you to bring them to this first meeting!

Once we have a good handle on what you’re looking for and what your style is we will draw out designs or gather images of pre-fabricated designs for you to look over. We can make appointments before or after our store hours starting at 8 am going until a 6:30 pm start time.  How we communicate is up to you, we can work through email and keep meeting in person to a minimum or you can drop by and check on things every other day!

Drawings of a two tone custom ring

If your design involves stones that we are providing we will set up times to meet and play with gemstones and the microscope. We work with a number of stone vendors, all of whom are part of the RJC (Responsible Jewelers Council), the AGTA (American Gem Trade Association), or the UN Global Compact.

This is where the “choose your own adventure” trail splits, if you chose a pre-fabricated design we will take a deposit (usually 20% of the total cost), if you chose pre-fabricated pieces and parts we will order them in and get your approval, or we may go full custom. If we needed to create a fully custom design and you approved a drawing we then have 2 routes: some designs need a CAD image created (this is a 3D image of your jewelry) and some designs need the wax to be hand carved. The CAD fee is $375, that‘s the cost for the image creation and this image is what allows us to make a wax sample of your piece. We allow as many CAD redesigns as we need to get it perfect, we normally see up to 2 edits. If one of our bench jewelers is carving your wax, to get them on their way the fee starts at $350.

CAD Drawing of a custom designed ring

When you approve the CAD we will have the wax 3D printed. A wax is a model of your jewelry that’s used to make a mold out of investment (similar to plaster), that mold is what we use to make the metal and final version of your jewelry. Once the investment mold is made the wax is then melted out leaving a space to “pour” the molten metal into.

Wax version of a custom designed ring

When your jewelry is cast the investment mold is cracked open and with a little bit of clean up your jewelry will look like the photo below. The investment mold can only be used once.

Custom designed ring after casting

And finally, it takes us a couple of days to turn your jewelry into this!

Finished custom designed ring in a ring box

Every custom piece that costs $1000 or more and where Teel Jewelers provides all of the stones and metal will come with a free insurance replacement appraisal.

Repair:

You can trust our full service repairs completed in house by Mike. We size silver, gold, and platinum rings, repair silver and gold chains and broken jewelry.

During our free inspection and jewelry cleaning we will recommend any maintenance we believe your jewelry needs, such as stone tightening, prong repair and replacement, and any other recommendation you may need to help your jewelry last.

If you have jewelry that needs attention, just bring it in and we can tell you what you need and provide a quote.

Store owner and bench jeweler working on a custom piece.Cleaning and Polishing:

We offer free inspection, cleaning, and polishing. Our recommendation is to have this done at least every 6 months.

During inspection we will check the integrity of the metal and check your stones for abrasions, chips, looseness, and anything out of the ordinary. If anything needs attention we will discuss repair options with you.

Appraiser sorting through jewelry.Jewelry Appraisals:

If you have a piece of jewelry but don’t know whether it’s costume or not, bring it in and we can  look it over and let you know what you have, for free.

We do insurance replacement appraisals, starting at $85 per piece of jewelry.

We do resell value appraisals (or estate appraisals), starting at $85 per piece of jewelry.