For my metal object I wanted to go back to my crafting roots and make a ring. This is the final product, made from two pieces of scrap silver that I had from another piece of jewelry.
These are the materials used: one piece of flat silver that remained from a band I made, a piece of square silver that had a crack about halfway through, and hard, silver solder.
I started off by annealing the flat piece, as it had been work hardened from the last project and was very tough. Then I bent it into the general shape for this ring's band. I also rounded off the sharp edges with a file while I waited for my Dremel to charge.
I then annealed the square piece and cut it to size so that it fills the gap of the band.
Next I fluxed where the solder would go and put two pieces of hard solder on either side of the square piece. I then heated the piece with my blow torch until the solder flowed into the gaps. Unfortunately, I had issues with one side, and had to redo it.
Once both joints were good, I hammered the ring on my ring mandrel to get it to be perfectly circular. Then I did some light passes with my Dremel and various abrasives, starting with a low grit grinding bit and finishing with my high grit polishing compounds. I wanted to maintain some of the imperfections, since this design is very organic, so I did not spend as much time on lower grits as I would have if I wanted a mirror finish.
Finally, I used a product called Liver of Sulfur to rapidly tarnish the silver, giving it its rather unique color and finish. 
Overall I am pleased with this ring, especially as something made from just scrap material. I'm disappointed by my mistake when soldering, as some of the solder made its way onto the band, and the tarnish looks different there compared to other spots on the ring that are just silver. 
Back to Top