The men and women on Bering Sea Gold are miners, but not in the stereotypical dusty, toothless, “panning for gold” sense. Instead, they quest for the precious metal by diving to the bottom of the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska.
One of those miners is a Santa Maria resident, albeit he only lives in town about two months out of the year. So how does a local guy end up hunting for sea gold on national television?
Local jeweler Charles B. Hood— who recently designed a piece for the nautical explorer—explained it this way: “He was in between jobs watching TV. Bering Sea Gold came on and his buddy said, ‘you should do that,’ so he did,” Hood said. “So he went to Alaska and bought a boat and a dredge.”
While the miner has yet to appear on the popular Discovery Channel show, he and his fellow divers have graced the Bering Sea Gold Facebook page.
The people on the show search for shiny bounty by cutting holes in the ice cap, diving through to the ocean floor, vacuuming up the sand, and then dredging it for gold.
Several months ago, the Santa Maria diver took some of his deep-sea treasure to CB Hood Diamond Co. to design a custom engagement ring for his fiancée. He sat down with Hood and developed a computer-generated rendering of the ring.
“He bought a really nice center stone, a diamond, and then we added some smaller stones and inlaid the gold nuggets in the sides of the ring … and then we took some gold wire and made little hearts in the side, too,” Hood said. “It was really delicate.”
When it comes to picking out an engagement ring or designing your own, Hood said it all comes down to quality—the quality of the diamond, the cut, and the workmanship of the overall design.
Hood, whose nickname is “Mr. Picky,” recommends “hearts and arrows” diamonds, which are ideally cut with perfect proportions. The rocks get their name because they project hearts and arrows patterns when placed under the magnifying glass.
“They show up because of the symmetry of the diamond and how the facets line up on the top and bottom,” Hood said.
Diamonds are rated by the four C’s: carat, clarity, color, and cut. The Gemological Institute of America, where Hood studied, created a grading system in the early 1950s to determine the quality of diamonds. The best rocks are of high-carat, clear, bright, and flawlessly cut.
While most people associate D’s with a barely passing grade, Hood explained that the Gemological Institute of America chose the designation back in 1953 because, prior to that, the grades A, B, C had little meaning.
“One store’s A quality could be nothing like the A quality just down the street,” he said. “So to eliminate confusion, they got rid of A, B, and C and started with D.”
Hood said he doesn’t like to work with anything below a G grade.
“The less yellow that’s in a diamond, the brighter the diamond because the yellow is actually impurity. It’s nitrogen [absorbed by the stone] while forming in the earth,” he explained.
He encourages clients to visit a high-quality, brick-and-mortar jeweler when shopping for rings because it’s important to see the stones and other materials in person to get an idea of what the ring will look like.
“Lots of people think they can buy a diamond off of a piece of paper, but each diamond is different,” he said. “If you put two of the same quality diamonds side by side to compare, one is probably going to be more beautiful than the other.
“The bottom line is they were made in nature, so some are going to come out amazing and others are not,” he said.
Hood said custom work tends to be a little more expensive because of the amount of detail and time that goes into designing and forging the ring, but he likes to work within his clients’ budgets.
Budgeting is also important to Katherine Fischer, co-owner of Fischer’s Fine Jewelry in Santa Maria. She said it’s a good idea for clients to have an idea of what they want when they come into the store.
“Some people want a really unique ring that the couple made together, and that’s more important to them than the center stone,” she said.
Something to keep in mind when purchasing a ring, custom-made or otherwise, is the wearer’s lifestyle.
For example, if the bride works in the medical field, Fischer said, she’s going to need a stone that’s not too high and won’t snag too easily.
She suggests clients come into the jeweler’s with some pictures of desired features—or features they don’t want.
From there, the jeweler will sit down with the client and either sketch a concept or design it on the computer using a program called CAD-CAM. Once the design is selected, it’s carved out of wax, casted, and molded.
“It’s kind of like [making] a clay sculpture,” Fischer said. “You take a block of wax and carve away the pieces you don’t want.”
She recalled a custom-made ring the store created a couple of years ago that incorporated a floral design with diamond petals.
“[The groom] was very specific about the shape of the petals,” Fischer said, adding that the groom’s professional background as an engineer made communicating easier.
“The ring was just so beautiful and detailed—something an engineer could really appreciate because of the details, but it was pretty, too,” she said.
Contact Managing Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 13-20, 2014.