Things are slow at work...waiting to die from whatever plague the media and political clowns are preaching about and whatnot.  So lets make a ring.

This project is what I would consider basic/beginner jewelry making.  I will try to bold any tools that I use that aren't in common use or are specific to jewelry making.  For this ring everything is made from scratch except the garnet, which was cut by a lapidary overseas (India if I had to guess).

This is what we're making.



And this is how it is done.

First we start with sterling silver grain.  You can skip this step by buying 1/2 round sterling wire.  You can see the grain in the crucible.  Also in this picture are the torch, adjustable ingot mold, and flux.  The torch is an oxy-acetylene setup but any torch will work.



Take the grain out of the crucible.  Pouring an ingot is not a difficult thing to do, it's just so easy to screw up.  The trick is to position the mold so that it is at the right position for you to pour into. Then HEAT THE MOLD AND CRUCIBLE.  Never start with cold tools.




The mold should be way too hot to touch and the crucible will glow slightly orange as you take the torch away from it.  Add your silver to the crucible and start heating it.  As you heat it throw a pinch of flux in on top of it.  It should melt in short order.  Pick up the crucible and roll the molten silver around.  Hold it to the opening in the mold and pour in one smooth motion.  If your pour isn't smooth the ingot will cool irregularly leaving, pits, pockets and flow lines.

This is the ingot sitting in the open mold.  Use tweezers or a screw driver to pop it out.



Here it is on my bench peg.  Cut the flashing off and sand the sharp edges off.

Next we will turn the ingot into usable 1/2 round wire using a rolling mill.  This is a combination mill, meaning I can roll wire and sheet with it.  You can see the ingot on the left side between the square wire slots.



Roll it out until you get the diameter to what you want for the ring.

A tip on using the mill. Flip the piece end for end every time it goes through the machine.

Once you have the right diameter move over to the 1/2 round rollers on the right side of this machine.

 

Now we have a nice, thick piece of 1/2 round.  You can see how much it has stretched out in the mill.  There is a small flaw, seen on the bottom of our wire.  It won't effect the end product and can be filed off at any time.



This piece is work hardened at this point and is far too hard to shape.  Let's anneal it.  Dip it in boric acid fire coat, lay it on a charcoal block and hit it with the torch.  Get it red hot, use even heat util it starts to glow, keep the heat on heavier wire like this for 20-30 seconds.  Once cool place it in pickling acid.



While the wire is in the pickle we'll form a bezel for the garnet.  In the picture is bezel wire, you can roll a piece of your ingot out and anneal it for a bezel too.  Typically bezel is 28-30ga and the stuff you buy is usually pure silver, not sterling.  Just wrap the bezel around the stone and mark it where it meets up.  Cut the bezel and file the ends smooth.



Make sure the ends fit tightly together and solder it.  We will be using  three grades of silver solder, hard, medium, and easy.  Flow points for these solders is 1450,1360,1325 respectively.  This means we can solder on top of other solder joints without re-flowing them by using solders with a lower flow point.

Here is the bezel, ready to solder, with a bead of hard solder on top of the joint.  

Always solder by heating the metal around the joint, NOT THE SOLDER.  Get the metal hot enough to flow the solder.



Now this goes in the pickle as well.

Next make a seat to go into the bezel.  The seat can be made of round, 1/2 round or flat wire, it is just something for the stone to sit on inside of the bezel and won't be seen on the finished project.

Here I am soldering the seat into the bezel using medium solder.



Start forming the shank.  I filed the end of the shank to a taper.  Use chain nose or round nose pliers, a small round mandrel and rawhide mallet or whatever you come up with to bend the end into a hook.  Here is a pic with the formed shank, bezel and stone.  Also in the picture are some of the tools I used.



Next form the shank into a ring shape.  In this picture I have some forming pliers.  Note that the convex jaw is wrapped in a sheet of copper, you will also see that the die block in the above pic is polished and that we haven't used any hammers harder than rawhide.  The reason for all of this is that any metal harder than silver will leave a mark in silver.  The more dinks, dents and gouges we put into the piece now the more difficult our finishing work will be.



I hammer it out into round on a ring mandrel and pull it up to the size I want then mark it and cut it off.



Here it is ready to be soldered with hard solder.



And here it is soldered with the bezel loosely positioned for soldering with easy solder.

No renaissance festival this year?

Here are the hand tools I'm using on this project.



After pickling the ring (this should be done every time you solder something to remove fire coat and oxidation) it is ready for setting.  Place the ring in a vice (with jaws wrapped in leather) and put the garnet in the bezel.  Use a bezel roller to push the bezel down around the stone.  On small durable stones like this I will go around and hammer the bezel edge tight against the stone using a punch made from a broken bur.



I'll now go over it with a pumice wheel on a flex shaft to sand out any blemishes too deep to be taken out by polishing, and also to dress up the part of the shank that goes around the bezel.  Pumice is soft enough that it will remove metal without scratching the stone.



Now for polishing.  This buffer (3450RPM) is used for polishing inside the ring shank and the edge of the shank.  The wheel on the right is rock hard felt.  Both polishers are used with white diamond tripoli.



This buffer is a variable speed and is used to polish the rest of the ring.  I use platinum tripoli on a stitched muslin buff for the initial buffering (on the left).  Then, after cleaning thoroughly to avoid cross contamination, hit it with a cotton buff and Fabulustre for a final polish (right side).



Here is the end product.

Que?  Not sure what that is all about?

That was really cool OP!  Thanks for sharing!

Agreed. Love to see all the varied talent on here.

Very cool!

It's always interesting to see how a pro does things.

Thanks for sharing!

Subbed for more jewelry making!

Wow neat op

Really cool stuff OP.

Its awesome to see some of the things I just finished learning about in my metallurgy class, and am learning about now in my metals and heat treatment class using in a practical application.

GARNET OP, you just had to make something shiny!

Very Kool thanks OP

Wow, your bench peg has many hours, days, weeks, months, years work on it.

It always amazed me how a bencher would work a peg to a level like that and cringe at the thought of replacing it. They always say it took me years to get it where I feel comfortable working on it.

I worked for a large jeweler in their manufacturing facility and the jewelers pegs all looked worn out.

EBR

Funny you say that.  I just replaced my bench peg last week.  It is the third or forth one I've had in the past 20 years.

Is it me or are the pics FUBAR?

It's you. I see them fine.

NEAT.

Thank you for sharing and explaining your skills!

@Lapidary

I'm just getting into making chains out of .999 pure silver. Really no interest in making other things.

I'm a big silver fan, and just want different ways of "storing" silver. And chains are cool.

I ordered a few Jewelers tools, and some silver wire.

First project was a half Persian weave. I ordered 11' of 9ga round wire, wrapped it around a 10mm spindle, and sawed the jump rings.

Weaved it together, (no solder) and boy 11ft didn't go very far. Ended up being like a large bracelet.

Looks really cool though. I'll post pics whenever I get back home.

I just ordered 20' of 10ga round wire, in hopes of making a long curb link chain, (soldered). Thought of going Cuban link, but don't want to file.

Plan is to wrap around an 8mm spindle.

Questions, if you don't mind?

Do you think that size jump ring would make a decent chain once twisted to lay flat?

Would 10mm jump rings make a decent chain when twisted?

I searched for the correct A/R and couldn't find anything, maybe not looking in the right direction.

Thank you.

I don't make chains anymore.  I made a few when I first started a couple of decades ago.  Much easier, and less time consuming, to buy them.  I can measure some curb chains next week when I'm back in the shop but 8-10mm sounds like a good sized link.  You will need to solder the links to keep them closed when you flatten it.  Do you have a mill or will you hammer it flat?

@Lapidary

I'll twist and see what it's like, then maybe hammer some.

Solder, yes, I have some.

No mill, just a couple basic tools, Jewelers saw, melting crucible, small torch, special tweesers, plus some things I already have that will work. And a way to pickle after solder, annealing, etc.
Like I said, just dabbling in it. And yes, a lot of work making the jump rings, etc.

Well crap...I forgot that I moved most of my inventory off-site a while back when fools started burning and looting this country.  So I don't have any chains to measure here.  However, looking at some of my catalogs a chain with an outside diameter of 13-14mm is going to be really heavy and best reserved for bracelets.  For a neck chain, an OD of 7-8mm is going to be a good size for a men's chain.

@Lapidary

Thank you, I'm not too concerned about weight, since it's not gonna be worn but only for feeling gangsta in my house. But I want it to at least look decent.

My main question, is with 10ga (2.5mm) wire diameter and 8 or 10mm ID = 13-15mm OD.
Will that twist together "flat" and look decent?
Or will there be large gaps that will look crappy?

Sorry if I'm not using the correct terms, Aspect Ratio I think is the correct term

Neat!

For curb chains, I generally think that a tighter link looks better than an open one.  Your 10ga wire is approx. 2.5mm in diameter.  So, if you run a 10mm inside diameter that will leave a 5mm gap in the middle.  I would try a little tighter than that, maybe go with an 8mm ID.  All of these measurements are approximate and go out the window when you start hammering to flatten the chain out.

Best thing to do is make 4 links, put them together, hammer them flat and see if you like it.

Edit:  When I say "heavy"  I'm talking about the look of the chain, not the actual weight.

Thank you sir. That's what I was looking for.
Appreciate you sharing your knowledge.
I'll post pics when I get a chance.

Thanks again.

This is what I got so far. I'm pretty happy.

The link chain is only about half built in this picture.