Ring for Hubby
Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2015 6:38 am
I made a ring for hubby for his birthday. It's not really my style but it is his style. I hope! lol
I used 22k & Sterling PMC and fired the Lab Sapphires in place. I used a credit card to lift the embossing for the name band.
I did a trial run in bronze first and learned a few things. For one, I got a ring stop. That's a plug made from investment that you can slip inside the ring so when it shrinks, it stops at that size. The bronze ring tore as it shrunk. I made it in a size 12 and shrunk it to a size 10. The final ring, with the stop, was fine.
Also, on the bronze, I layered the strips all together before wrapping around the mandrel. That didn't work very well. So on the silver made the cross square and the gemstone components first. Then I rolled a base layer and wrapped it. Next I lightly traced where the cross square would go and added the name strips and added the cross square and gemstone components. After it was dry I went back and built up the sides a bit to fill the gaps from the flat cross square and the round ring. As always, I tidied up with diamond bits and sandpaper before firing.
It worked a lot better. After firing it was the correct size, but not 100% round. I'll have to play with that a bit. I tapped it out a little bit but I'm not confident enough yet to fully tap it out. Not on this one. I'll make something else and experiment. This is fine for hubby.
I used 22k & Sterling PMC and fired the Lab Sapphires in place. I used a credit card to lift the embossing for the name band.
I did a trial run in bronze first and learned a few things. For one, I got a ring stop. That's a plug made from investment that you can slip inside the ring so when it shrinks, it stops at that size. The bronze ring tore as it shrunk. I made it in a size 12 and shrunk it to a size 10. The final ring, with the stop, was fine.
Also, on the bronze, I layered the strips all together before wrapping around the mandrel. That didn't work very well. So on the silver made the cross square and the gemstone components first. Then I rolled a base layer and wrapped it. Next I lightly traced where the cross square would go and added the name strips and added the cross square and gemstone components. After it was dry I went back and built up the sides a bit to fill the gaps from the flat cross square and the round ring. As always, I tidied up with diamond bits and sandpaper before firing.
It worked a lot better. After firing it was the correct size, but not 100% round. I'll have to play with that a bit. I tapped it out a little bit but I'm not confident enough yet to fully tap it out. Not on this one. I'll make something else and experiment. This is fine for hubby.
