Stuller Bands
A Manufacturing Story
When you buy a Stuller band, you are buying the highest quality available in our industry. Our bands are made in Lafayette, Louisiana, at our global headquarters in our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. To guarantee the quality of our bands, we begin band production by taking a bar of gold from our gold vault, melting it and making our own casting grain. Expert craftsmen control every aspect from metal fabrication to the finishing touches. They monitor each step along the way to assure your band is worthy of the lifetime commitment it represents.
CONTINUOUS CAST PROCESS
We set the casting machine to the appropriate size tube, insert a starter bar and add the casting grain. After adjusting the temperature for the metal being cast, we press the tow button to begin casting. When the pipe reaches the specified length, we cut and quench the newly casted pipe.
PIPE DRAWING PROCESS
We use the ring size you ordered, the finished wall thickness and the outside diameter to determine the drawing dies sequence. We swage the end of the cast pipe to fit onto a steel draw rod. This requires great expertise. Once the inside diameter of the pipe is tightly wrapped around the draw rod, we “roll” it after each die draft so the pipe won’t stick to the draw rod. At the end of the draw sequence, the rod is pulled through a “pull off” die. The Draw Tech confirms that OD, ID, and wall thickness match your order.
We cut off the pipe’s swaged tip and hand-engrave the pipe specifications and metal quality. It is now ready to be sent to the Machine Tool Operations department for the next production stage.
CNC LATHE MACHINE PROCESS
Our operator feeds the drawn pipe into the lathe machine set to cut the exact finger size, millimeter width and profile. The profile of the band determines the next step. Most bands go straight to the polishing department.
HAND FINISHING
After tumbling the band, we hand finish it. That includes polishing the inside, karat stamping the band and then polishing the outside for that special shine your customers love. From tumbler to final polish, it takes just over four minutes per band. Now the band is ready to be shipped to you for next day delivery.
We place the band on a lathe and the operator hand applies the milgrain tool to give your ring the desired look.
Channels and holes for channel set bands are machined, on a CNC Lathe, one ring at a time to ensure you the best quality without extra metal loss.
If your customer wants engraving, the band goes to our laser engraver. It is engraved with the message in the font or handwriting your customer wants. If requested, we send it to our enamel area for color fill in one of six colors.
SPECIAL FINISHES
All of our special finishes and cut patterns are applied individually and by hand. Cut patterns require a Posalux machine. We use the appropriate diamond tip tool to cut the design or pattern your customer chose.