Homemade ring?
 

Has anyone here ever made a simple band?

My ladyfriend and I are getting hitched this summer, and she has expressed interest in making our bands. I like the idea too, but I think we're imagining different processes. She wants to take a class from a local jewellery maker, and I want to start with a hunk of metal and machine it into a simple band.

Anyone ever done anything like this, and if so could you post a picture of the results?

Another engineer in shop where I work had a machinist make him a wedding band from Titanium. I thought about making a Ti one, but I think gold is already too strong to be safe but I wear one anyway. A few times a year I hear stories of guys that loose a finger or the skin off their finger due to wedding rings.

Have you researched the "Lost Wax Method"?

You could always forge and hammer it out as well.
There's a lot of info online about it.

All you need to do is get your material of choice and run it on a lathe, smooth the edges and mark the inside. It would only take about an hour to make a nicely finished simple band, that's my guess.

You know who's very good at making rings - dentists. You make a ring in much the same way you make a gold crown. You start with the ring (or crown) in wax. You then make a plaster cast of the wax with a hole leading to where the wax form is. Then you put the plaster cast in an oven, which melts the wax, which can then be poured out the hole. You then put the plaster cast on the end of a centrifuge, put the crucible full of whatever metal you use (tooth gold actually works quite well) in the centrifuge, and spin it, which forces the liquid metal into the mold. You let the mold harden, break off the plaster, and polish the ring.

My father (a dentist) helped me make a simple band with a V in the middle for one of my girlfriends. So, if you have any dentist friends, I bet they could help.

That's along the line that I was thinking...

I think HER prefernce is what s_wilwerding described. Her uncle used to be a dentist so he's in the loop. I'll ask him if he could help me out.

Great ideas guys!

Steve's method would be my approach. Equipment is inexpensive on Ebay as well.

Turning a ring could leave you with quite expensive "shavings".

Take a look here.
http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/directory/library/subject/1

My dentist makes jewelry and told me it's pretty easy. He also brews his own beer (as do I), so we get along really well!

In one of my Graphic Art classes in college my professor also taught jewelry making. So we made a piece in that class by the wax method. The piece came out nice

You basically start off with wax that you shape into the piece like clay. you then add a cone shape piece to the mold to serve as a funnel for the metal you are casing. That is then put into a metal cylinder and filled with clay. What happens is the clay becomes the mold as the wax is heated and evaporates. The mold is then put into a centrifuse type of jig and the metal is melted in a bowl kust outside of the casing. The the mechanism is spun at a high speed and the metal enters into the mold. You then take the mold, drop it into water and the clay desolves and now you have a casting ready for finish and polishing.

It was a great experience. Plus the fact that the piece was litteraly " one of a kind" and made by my own hands..I was sad a few years later when i lost it !!

This happens. Decades ago, I had a job in a plywood plant...a guy almost lost a finger, an allegic reaction to the glue, his bride of a few years not wanting him to have the ring cut off because of some stupid vow that he'd never remove it. I've never worn a ring of any kind for just that reason, fear of injury. To me, a wedding band on a guy says one of two things. That his wife doesn't trust him, or that he has such an ego that he feels the need to fend off hopeful females. In my case, neither applied. Besides, it just feels weird, a restriction to normal hand use.

Well, I have a lathe and I did ask the wife for Ti when we got married but she got me platnium instead. Besides the dangers the ring is also expensive so I rarely wear except when we go out. My wife finally understood why when I showed her pictures of what can happen. Nevertheless I've been thinking of spinning one up on the lathe lately, either SS or Ti. Just something simple.

I was thinking SS... I really think I could do this pretty easily. I think she'd prefer to cast one. I'm going to talk to her uncle this weekend... he's a retired dentist. I think it could be a really fun project for us.

Interesting, I never wear rings either. The only people that have problems with this is an occasional insecure/brainwashed female who thinks that a wedding band is a collar.

I generally agree, I find it goofy when people flip out over guys that don't wear a ring. FWIW she doesn't put much emphasis on it. ..she didn't even want an engagement ring.

LOL, well my wife wanted a ring, but that's cool...for her.
I should add that I'll put the "wedding" ring I have on for special ocassions. They're just so damned uncomfortable.

I've seen it done out of wax, really interesting to watch

Doing it on a lathe would be cool...

If you have some spare days (or weeks), you can make one the way a friend did many years ago.

He literally peened the edge of a 25 cent piece (silver type) with a tablespoon for hours on end until he arrived at the correct width and internal dia. He then drilled the middle and finished it. Looked quite nice. Something to do while reading forums?

Sherwood