3
A luster restored
Inside the careful process behind Aggie Ring repairs
on Carter’s home burned for
two hours while he and his
family vacationed in Alaska in
JL 2013. A fire chief s phone call
waited at the hotel, but Carter’s first ques
tion was not about the house.
“I asked them, ‘My Aggie Ring’s back
there — if you could find it, please try to
find my Aggie Ring,” Carter said.
Twenty-seven hours by plane, train
and car brought Carter, Class of 1974,
and his family back to College Station.
His Aggie Ring was eventually found
alongside his wedding ring
— both burned, encrusted in
ash and barely recognizable.
Two weeks later, however,
the ring was restored to its
luster by a careful, handcraft
ed process designed to repair
or replace an Aggie Ring in
any condition and age.
To Carter and the former students who
send their rings to Balfour for repairs, the
process seems effortless — rings worn
down by a lifetime come back clean,
polished and exactly as requested. To the
craftsmen who make it happen, however,
an Aggie Ring repair is built on a lifetime
of experience.
Start to Finish
An Aggie Ring passes through Bal
four’s Austin factory every day of the
year, explains David Collier as he walks
through the factory floor. Collier, direc
tor of manufacturing at the Balfour fac
tory, said the factory works on over 100
Aggie Ring repairs and replacements a
day. These numbers continue to grow
with the student population, a fact that
Donna Hebert, who stands at the begin
ning and end of every repair order, un
derstands better than most.
Hebert inspects every repair order that
passes through the factory, and no former
student receives their ring again with
out her approval of the restoration. She
moved from Massachusetts to Texas with
the factory when it moved in 1997, and
has worked on rings for almost 30 years.
“I just want to make sure they are the
best rings [a student] can have, so they can
really proudly display their accomplish
ments and tell everyone, ‘This is a Balfour
ring,”’ Hebert said. “That’s basically what
I want, to make sure [the ring is] exactly
what they want, and that it’s the best that
it can be.”
Rings arrive for repairs either from the
Association on a former student’s behalf,
or directly from a former student. Large
envelopes contain the damaged rings and
repair requests. Hebert slides a ring out
of one envelope — the surface is almost
completely worn away across its dull sur
face.
“Obviously this ring is very old, very
worn. So that’s what I’m going to write
down ... Look at the palm side. Obvi
ously there’s no pebbling so I write ‘no
pebbling,”’ Hebert said as she turns the
ring in her palm. Its accompanying paper
reads “Class of 1964.”
Dents, nicks, worn carvings, lacquer
and dirt — Hebert lists every part of her
checklist as she examines several rings and
writes her observations on the ring en
velope’s back. Many rings come in for
repairs with an interesting note — do
not repair, at least not fully. Despite its
condition, the ’64 ring’s owner wrote a
very specific request: “Do not refinish or
re-pebble.”
“We do as little as we can, only what
they want,” Hebert said. “We don’t take
care of everything because a lot of them,
they like that old look, they like that
scratched look, they like that worn look.”
Aggie Rings and Hebert’s notes then
pass on to one of several craftsmen, de
pending on the former student’s requests.
Many request a resizing and end up in
front of Eric Amaya, who arrives at the
factory most mornings at 4 a.m. to cast the
gold for new ring orders before shifting to
resizing in the afternoon.
Amaya reads Hebert’s notes on the ’64
ring and places it on a thin
rod that gradually thickens
to a larger base. Rings are
resized by breaking them
and welding new gold into
the gap; Amaya hammers the
ring down the rod to open its
back end, but the ring begins
to come apart in several plac
es. This can happen to older rings, Amaya
explains, because past casting techniques
made the ring from three pieces instead
of one.
“A lot of these older rings were made
in three pieces back when they were
made in Attenborough, Massachusetts,”
Amaya said. “So sometimes I’ve actually
had a ring where I just hit — barely tap
it — and it fell apart into three pieces.”
Collier said the owners of such rings
have two options — continue with the
resizing and risk a complete break, or
keep the size as is. If a complete break
does happen and it can’t be salvaged, a
new ring is cast.
New Gold, Same Tradition
Tom “Ike” Morris, Class of 1933,
walked into the Association when he was
102 to order his third Aggie Ring. His
life story weaves in and out of the A&M
history most students call tradition — he
waited tables with James Earl Rudder,
hitchhiked home with E. King Gill and
helped set the Aggie Ring’s strict order
requirements. His first ring cost $16.50.
“The Aggie Ring opens up a path for
trust and future friendships,” wrote Mor
ris in an email. “The ring bonds all Aggies
together.”
The ’33 eagle and shield mold that re
cast Morris’ ring rests in one of several
trays where Balfour keeps previous class
year molds. The molds made from these
base designs are injected with hot wax to
create a wax ring that is eventually used
to cast a gold counterpart.
Despite Morris’ longevity, his was not
the oldest re-order on record — a few
rows down from his ’33 mold lies a Class
of 1925 eagle and shield.
Lifetimes of Experience
Billy Lancaster walked into Balfour’s
factory hoping to make some money for
his wife and children as a seasonal welder,
but 38 years and several positions later, he
handcrafts Aggie Ring restorations.
“I was young but I was married and
I had kids so I had to have a job — I
didn’t miss any work so they kept me.
I was supposed to hit the road, but they
kept me,” Lancaster said with a laugh as
he pulled out an envelope, read Hebert’s
notes and examined the ring. Despite a
slight tremor in his hands while they rest,
his actions are smooth and quick as he
works on the ring in front of him.
Lancaster is one of the few craftsmen in
the factory who can hand carve individual
symbols into a ring. A few letters, the class
STORY
John Rangel
PHOTOS
Shelby Knowles
RESTORATION ON PG. 7