BISHU

Every other goldsmith in this category is someone you commission: you bring an idea, a stone or a photograph, and a professional designs the ring for you. BISHU works the other way around. You carve the ring yourself in wax, either alone with a kit at home or at a table in a small workshop group, and BISHU only starts its own work once your carved model is back in its hands: casting it in silver or 18-karat gold, then finishing the surface. If what you want is a ring you can say you made yourself, at a fraction of a bespoke commission's price, this is that option. If you want a professional to design the ring for you, this isn't the entry for that; the rest of this category covers it.

BISHU runs its studio from Ankerstrasse 25 in Zürich, where the finishing and polishing happens once a piece comes back from casting. The business calls itself "we make you make jewellery", and that is a literal description of what happens: a customer buys a kit online, carves a wax ring blank using the tools and step-by-step tutorials supplied, then mails or drops the wax model back. BISHU casts the piece, using an outside casting partner it names in Schaffhausen, and a goldsmith in the Zürich atelier grinds, sands and polishes it into a finished ring. The site is bilingual, German and English, right down to the individual product names, so an international buyer isn't reading a machine translation of someone else's shop.

The kit that matters for this category is the 18K Gold Ring Making Set, priced at CHF 439 regardless of ring size (Small, Medium or Large). BISHU names it directly as an option for a personal engagement or wedding ring, not just a hobby project: its own English product page describes it as a very personal engagement or wedding ring to give to your special someone. It ships with a precision scale so you can weigh your carved wax model as you go and get a feel for the coming gold cost before committing to a final shape, and BISHU rates it as its "Advanced" skill tier, one notch up from the "Medium" level it gives its standard Classic Ring Making Set. You can add a Swiss-made diamond for CHF 139 (lab-grown in Muotathal and cut in Surat, India, available in three sizes) or a zirconia stone for CHF 89, set into the finished ring by BISHU's own goldsmiths rather than by you.

For anyone weighing up whether they need solid gold at all, the entry-level Classic Ring Making Set runs from CHF 139 to CHF 195 depending on width and whether you pick recycled silver or gold-plated brass, and the Signet Ring Making Set runs CHF 169 to CHF 249 on the same basis. Both are cast in recycled silver as standard; BISHU plates pieces in recycled gold to a stated 5 microns on request, a finish it says can be reapplied once it wears down. None of that is solid gold, so if the weight and permanence of the real thing matter for an engagement ring, the 18K set is the one to buy. The cheaper kits suit a first attempt, a pendant, or a second matching piece: a kit's two wax blanks cover one finished item, and a couple carving two rings from one order pays extra for the second casting, CHF 120 for a second classic ring in silver, CHF 140 for a second signet ring, CHF 129 for a second pendant, plus a CHF 20 surcharge if that second piece is gold-plated brass instead of silver.

How the process actually works

BISHU's own step-by-step guide runs through nine stages: tools, carving technique, ring design, rough shape and sizing, fine shape and surface, exact ring size and an info sheet, a choice of matte or polished finish, space for remarks to the goldsmith, and finally posting the ring blank and tools back with that info sheet. That last detail matters for anyone nervous about carving their own engagement ring: BISHU builds in a second, professional sizing check. Its FAQ explains that you fit your wax model to an approximate size while carving, then take a precise measurement at the end, and BISHU's studio adjusts the piece to that exact size once your wax model reaches them, rather than leaving the fit entirely to your own carving. It recommends starting from a size S or M wax blank for women and size L for men. If you'd rather not carve alone at all, the Wax Ring Carving Workshop puts you at a table with 4 to 8 other people, guided through the same carving in one sitting at the Ankerstrasse studio, for CHF 265 a head. The Silver Clay Workshop, at CHF 230, is a same-day alternative using a mouldable clay-like material rather than wax and casting, so you leave with a finished piece the same afternoon instead of waiting for it to come back.

What a newcomer to Zürich should know

Every price is published upfront online in Swiss francs, from the CHF 4.50 add-on for a spare wax blank to the CHF 439 flat rate for the gold ring, so there's no need for an in-person quote just to find out what something costs. BISHU is open to the public Thursday and Friday from 12.00 to 18.00 and Saturday from 11.00 to 18.00, or by appointment outside those hours, worth checking before a walk-in visit. Shipping within Switzerland is free above CHF 100 and CHF 4.50 below it, and the site publishes its own turnaround: about 4 working days to receive an empty kit, and up to 15 working days to get a finished cast piece back once your wax model has reached BISHU (25 working days if you've chosen gold plating). BISHU doesn't publish a separate figure for the solid-gold set specifically, so budget on the longer side of that window if you're working toward a date. The one real limit for this audience: BISHU states plainly that it only ships within Switzerland, so this only works ordering from a Swiss address, which is the position most expats living in Zürich are actually in, rather than someone trying to have a ring posted here from abroad.

One thing worth being upfront about, because BISHU is upfront about it itself: casting and plating don't happen on Ankerstrasse 25. The site's own transparency section names external partners in Schaffhausen and Lucerne for those two steps, with wax preparation, fitting and finishing done in the Zürich atelier. That's a genuine difference from an atelier where every step happens behind the same counter, and if having the whole object made under one roof is the point of a bespoke commission for you, that's a reason to look elsewhere in this category. It didn't stop BISHU from disclosing it rather than glossing over it, which counts for something.

Verdict

BISHU isn't trying to be a bespoke goldsmith, and it doesn't pretend otherwise: this is a kit and workshop business built around lost-wax casting, a technique the site traces back to around the 4th century BC, repackaged as something with no jewellery-making experience can pick up at a kitchen table over a weekend. For a couple who wants a ring with a story attached to how it was made, not just where it was bought, and who don't need a from-scratch design, it's a genuinely different and considerably cheaper route to an engagement or wedding ring than anything else in this list. Book the workshop if you'd rather not carve alone, buy the 18K Gold Ring Making Set if solid gold matters to you, and expect the multi-week turnaround the site publishes once your wax model is back in BISHU's hands.