Lessons

Lesson Info

Sizing & Shaping Your Ring

So our project here today we're going to do eh, basil setting or a kabash on setting onto a ring? So here is our peace we're actually going to also add a little texture tar metal here by doing a different technique than using let's say hand tools, eh? So we're going to be using something a little unconventional to create texture on term metal and there is talk about how to make a basic bantering so to start we're actually going to, um, start talk about sizing and talk about making our ring so when you are choosing what size of a ring that you're going to make, you need to first kind of reference the thickness of your medal now we're using rectangular wire here so it's kind of already cut two aa wit that we want um and then we are already and it's going to be cut to a link that we needed to be and so we're going to reference ah chart to kind of figure out what's the proper size so though it's so you don't know your size thank you here's our ring size er's can purchase the's now how ring...

size er's work is that we heather numbers on each side numbers and a dash that means a dash me that's a half a size so for myself I slip it onto this finger like ok that's a good fit a little tension over the knuckle then you know, it's the right size for you. And this happens to be an eight with a dash next to it. So that means it's, eight and a half. All right, so now that I know that I'm an eight and a half, I'm gonna go to my sizing charge. This is the chart that is provided for you when you kind of download the template, this is a standard chart to be able determine what length of material you need to cut to be able to make the proper ring size for you. So on the top here, you may notice that that is referencing there have numbers twelve, fourteen, sixteen and so on. That references the thickness of the material. So your gauge all right, on the side, here is your ring size. Now. Most ring size there's only give you a solid size, so a number like eight or they give you half size like that, like I was an eight and a half on the side. Here, you'll notice that there's actually sizes on the chart here for corner sizes so I could do eight and a quarter or in three quarters. Now, sometimes you find that you're in between sizes and you can reference those quarter size is to kind of find what fits you best. So what I'm going to dio is that I'm going to reference the thickness the material here which I believe I'm using twelve gauge so gonna go up here and find that row here and then check across so looking at our chart here a little ruler there to show you in the twelve I'm sixty four point four millimeters that's basically the length of of that I need to cut now point four millimeters ok so we're going to be using a millimeter ruler or a ruler that has millimeters on it some of them don't have the millimeters on it they might just have centimeters so if you're not aware one one centimeter equals ten millimeters all right so when I look at this I'm like ok so one is ten so for me that was sixty four point four and so we need tio take a second ok a millimeter millimetres air really small so how am I going to get a point for of a millimetre like how am I going to get that so what you can do is actually and decide to size up or size down round up or round out so with sixty forces point for its closer to sixty four so I'm to say you know just sixty four millimeters if it was like more point five or seven that I could round up to sixty five so once I know what that is I'm gonna take my medal here just grab a sharpie, your best friend in the jewelry studio and check on here on the ruler. Now, this happens to be a millimeter ruler, so I can know that that's sixty right there, sixty four would be just right before there, and so I could just make a little mark for myself right there. And then I saw that material out, so I have this pre sod so it's already for our size that I for my proper size here. No, I'm going to start to bend this round. Now we're gonna have to switch over to our hammering station to do that. But what you gonna do first is what you need to do most the time when you're starting to shape your model isn't neal. So, uh, to a neil my medal, my silver. We didn't talk about this before, so I'm going to kind of address this again. We don't talk about the difference, so you, when you're a kneeling silver, it does look a little different, and I'm tryingto, you know, avoid that fire scale, someone coated with flux now, because it has such a low melting temperature, my propane oxygen torch here can easily melted, so here let's profits up a little bit, so what I want to dio is look for that color changing it, but the color change is going to be that dull red, but you don't want the whole piece glowing like you did before. If it's glowing, that means you're melting your silver, so I'm looking for the the metal to actually turn that color on lee when the flame is touching that area and then it disappears from I try to stay out of the light of this now, it's tricky to see so I will do my best to point out to you. Sometimes people actually turn off the lights to be able to see what's going on, because it is a subtle red, and sometimes when you first a neil, your silver, it'll go up a black in color, so usually the flux can also tell you, so the flux is gone clear, so I know I'm close, so you'll see a halo of red and then will disappear because sort of seeing that as I move across here, you see it kind of be a little bit brighter. Fluxus down, little red looks a little brighter there, and suze, I move my torch away, it goes away. That means it's a kneeled and so I'm going from end to end to make sure that I see that color change happen every time. From end to end that I know the entire piece has been in hell we see that we're really subtle kind of goes away so it comes something like sink away when you do it like that now just for the sake of being precautionary I'm gonna show you it looks like when you melt it so if I kept this year it's going to start to turn a little red so you start to get little grainy in color and then we'll start to curl up on itself like that so that's how easy you can melt your silver and I like to show that some people don't know their silver if you have to worry about your ring falling apart your beautiful new piece that you're about to make so when you see it start to get that heard hot get your torch out of there let it drop in temperature and your fine and that you don't have to do anything else so just like when you're sauntering you see the water flow you don't need to keep staring at its kind of mesmerizing thing if all pretty and shiny and you just want to look at it what you like it's important to just move your heat off of it and you have to turn your torch off right away just move your heat off of it and it's fine so I'm just gonna leave back there that's nice in neil I would just quench pickle and then go about my business to shape it so here we are with our nice piece already cut to size and now we're going to move over to the hammering area and start shaping this round now we're gonna be using a ring mandrell that's what this guy is to kind of create star shape and our form so I'm using a tabletop vice to clamp this down now vices adjust in two different directions this one happens to be on a swivel so I'm in a position this where it's clamped in this it won't move anymore for us there and then we can tighten this year now some vices actually have kind of roof little see jaws like that this one actually kind of does so you look down in here has little grooves right there that actually allows you to grip on to round rods which is piping or our mandrell here so I can actually plant this piece in there I'm not actually move this so it's a little bit more visible after I get this in here so I'm hand tight now you really need to make sure this is in there nice and tight because it can shift on you so let me swivel this open it back up really quick so you can kind of see what's going on here we are it's not good for anybody okay so now I'm gonna use a non marring hammer to shape this non marring hammers or melons, or basically ah hammers that don't have a steel face, whether it's plastic leather like a raw hide here becoming different sizes in for doing different work. This happens to be a particular type of mallet it's called the dead blow all right, and it's called that because there is can hear that in here, so it has steel shot in it, and that basically makes the hammer physically heavier so it can do the work like a steel hammerhead would, but actually not, you know, leave the scratches and the dings that a metal faced hammer would, but since we're tryingto spammers shape of really kind of rough piece of metal me a thick piece of metal, we need some, like behind it, and we don't want to have to do all that physical work ourselves and let the hammer do it for us, so I'm going to start so this actually this tool is normally has grooves on it. There's numbers on it does refer to the ring size. If you happen to have a bring that exists already, you can drop it on here and figure out what size it is, but when we're hammering, you don't need to pay attention to any of that. Doesn't matter what you don't have to sit on the like oh I'm an eight I have to be on the eight line toy does not matter just start where it supported easily now I'm gonna start hammering put him down and kind of rock when I do this um hopefully device will cooperate as you do have to kind of put your muscle into this so you don't want it to be dangling off like that you wanted to be fairly tight so do it gradually so I'm hammering down I'm scooting it out and bring down scooting out and so I can't hold on to it anymore like ok is not quite curve just yet so I'm gonna go back over here going on the farther part of the theme mandrell here because it can support more and get it kind of curve so we're not quite meeting age meeting yet such you were going to do is we're going to be making a but joint so want things to come around and hit each other to create a seamless ring so we're going to sauder together at the joint um now some people are like ok, you know ok it's not quite closed there's been a lot of time trying to keep the shape around you don't need to do that this it can look squashed it might be hard to think that you're going to squash it just so that you meet a nice you're making a valley okay so you don't want it to be at a peak you wanted to be a valley so it's a d shape that's typically referred tio soto look flat on one side and have around curve to its recreating a d shape right now we'll round the ring afterwards don't worry you'll be all nice pretty and round right now we're not worried about it and I'm gonna switch over to a soft surface which I just have rubber here could be a wood table anything that's not going to scratch it's not going to do it on the metal all right and I'm gonna hammer on one side and just kind of bringing the walls of my drawbridge down if you will to the other side now they're nearly touching right now I've been hitting on the sides here in here now I'm gonna hit directly on top to kind of bring that down bring them out and down to the valley one side on the other side another touching right now you can see that they're touching just on that edge but not in the way we wanted and I'm gonna hit directly on top of this line they might summary a little bit but it's just not just going on one side or the other now once again I make this look easy I've seen a student take an hour to do this and more than that and because getting these to me directly across from each other can be tricky now something that let me backtrack for real quick second so I'm creating a bunch, right? All right, so the that means a zay mentioned before in aggressive sauntering there can't be any space or gaps order does not fill gaps and so you want to file when you cut this out so let's go back over here for two seconds and that's cool enough to the touch were my tools so I cut this to size you assume it's clean I might need to file this, so if I didn't cut it straight, I might need to file it so it's a nice flat plane because if it isn't a flat plane, then we're gonna have a gap that's not going to saw their very well, you'll be able to see it's not going to be pretty the idea when you're making ah ring is that you wanted to be seamless you want no one to be able to find out where that seem is at all perfect clean no one can find it. So if it doesn't meet perfectly there's a sawing technique that I can show you that all kind of works like file to kind of hfs clean away, shave away any excess metal if these aren't meeting perfectly but let me get back to that really quick so so you all can see over here, so trying to get this straight across from each other somewhere on one side, the other side, one side, other side, you don't want it to be higher than that, so if you can run your finger over and you feel that means that one side's too tall could see that so it's not met quite right, so nearly straight across from each other, but I have a little wonky action happening, and I'll show you what I mean by that so nearly straight across from each other. So this actually could be a little bit lower if you hit it too far down, like you're down in the pit of the motor something, um, you could imagine that from the drawbridge, then if it goes too far down and can't meet, you're gonna have a gap, then you have to open the ring back up and then try to bring the walls back in again. That happens all the time, so at this point, it's not quite straight across from each other, but it's not too far down so I could hit it just a hair more and this is totally a perfectionist thing I will admit so now that's pretty spot on, see how those air directly across from each other that's what we want now notice, though one is higher than the other. How do we fix that? Now I could grab a pair of pliers and try to pry them back and forth. If everybody's familiar with messing with jump brings that's going to scratch my mettle by doing that. So you take a ring clampett with this lovely little tool right here is this kind of wedge goes in there you place your ring on one side like that. Take your wedge, tap it in place that if you had another ring clamp, you place it on the other side and then you can just kind of go this go back and forth like that. Teo moving back and forth like a jumper ring and now it's straight across from each other. Let's see that? All right, so now we're ready to go. Well, let me show the song technique before a jump to sauntering. So now if you looked out on this, you kind of see that there's a little bit of the gap, kind of like my fingernail could fit in there when you see that that's, can you feel that gap with sauder? Technically, yes. Is it proper? No. And so we're going to try and fix that by using the sewing technique, so I'm going to take my ring have it sitting upright like this now this is where you need to hold it really specifically and this is where mistakes come unfortunately usually happen and unfortunately there could be, uh, really unfortunately potential injury so be mindful when you're doing this always beat any attention to what your fingers are. So the ring the seamus sitting here in front of me holding the ring on each side pushing down and kind of pinching outward that basically because when you're hammering back and forth, tension happens and it pushes it together and so when you cut through it, sometimes I don't want to push itself together that could throw off your sob lane because when you're doing this if you saw off to one side notice that there's a millimeter difference between sizes you just took a size off yours bring so this is something that is a quick fix but if it's done wrong, you could have some noticeable problems it's let me just show is really quite I am gonna have sought an angle starting at the top and just going really slow straight down the middle have it really close to the woods that when you go through it goes straight into the wood like that gonna you can kind of flex that sometimes and just pull it right off like that now I could see his lawn cap if I pinch together like that, you see how it's practically seamless he barely seems there's the gap and squeeze it together and it's practically line is gone that's what you want and you'll see that all the way through here on the sides now let's water so this does need to be touching so since I had to push together because that gap was gonna tap it ever so slightly to make sure that they're touching and and so I don't physically have to do that kind of pinching what I'm suffering all right so we're ready to go so I'm gonna clean it using a scotch bright pad remember only the joint's gonna have sought her flowing on it so I'm just going to clean the joint all the edges of it scotch ipads really great because it is a flexible abrasives you kind of shape it into crevices into textures and so that's kind of another thing outside of sandpaper can be a little limiting so that's why I'm using scott right pad is kind of indispensable so now we're going to use a fun tool another heat sink um toehold our ring up for us maybe even higher than that here we are so I'm going to use gravity to my advantage when I'm slaughtering this so I'm gonna flux the whole ring because it is silver but I'm gonna place it place the slaughter on the inside that body heat from underneath it to pull this order to the outside some of the profits up with the joint facing down okay, so the joint so because if I put the joint up here and try to do it, this water flow too much that I'm gonna slaughter the third armistice refer to are these cross lock tweezers to my piece and I don't want that so and I'll stop and show you this again, so I'm going to use hard sauder um we are going to be if you recall, we are gonna be having other sauntering joints, but how it's gonna work so we have a sovereign joined for the ring. This platform is going to be sought erred to the ring itself here, and then the bengals slaughtered to itself with its own separate ring. I will get to all of this and then that has to be slaughtered to the surface here. All right, so I'm gonna do that separately. So when you use hard for this hard for the best, all medium for this, for the vessel to the peace and I'll go over this again, I'll mention this again so and then medium this whole big base, then to medium will be used to slaughter it to the ring itself, so ok, we're starting the hard always good place to start and also it hard is the most structurally sound sauder, meaning it's the highest melting temperature less brittle than all the other sauder so that's what's really going to keep things and rings get a lot of banging you hit him a lot against things that kind of have the most contact with the world in comparison to other jorrie and so you want tio keep it in mind they're going toe it's going to be able to take a beating so you want to make sure it's extra strong so I was since I cut some sought earlier I have some sitting here we're gonna melt our flux first don't need a huge flame medium size flame is fine mr by just circling you don't have to do one of these crazy numbers awkward lease you know awkward that is you don't need to do that I would see someone do that I'm always doing this if you come straight on straight on to my piece sometimes torches the oxygen in the air can adjust funny can always just go back a picture towards somebody melt my flux and you can see that the ring the whole ring is being heated. What I'm coming from this direction could the flux is reacting to it so you don't need to do that like candy want this directional thing so you have your flux that nice clear consistency I would add one piece now you can if I had smaller pieces you can see this so my trees are reporting right now to the exact, like, that's a small piece you could probably put two you can see that this guy right next to him, right? That one right there that will do the job that's big enough? Um, that I could just do one. Sawyer likes the ball up on itself. So first it balls ups within the rectangular roundish form right now no ball up into a ball and then I'll spread out looking a puddle so it will want to go towards the center, not come out to the ends. And so if you place it just in the middle and there's this tiny piece, then the ends of your ring may not be attached is only center only the center of that joint will be attached. So that's, why you would normally like to place to we're gonna go with this big guy and I think we'll be fine now flux can get a little slick when it drops in temperatures. I'm just heat this up before I place myself on there so doesn't go flying away placing that in the center. You see that it's nice right in the middle there the small detail thing, so get up close there, so now I'm just going to do even heat just in the obama kneeling now this is one solid piece so I don't have to really be heating other directions because I'm not it's one piece all the way around I'm joining it to itself so soon as I kind of see that it's got nice even him ago underneath side to side but I want those ends to meet so back and forth back and forth when it flows I'll move up and down the line which you just kind of saw there it goes again and then you can see once again that that even that small piece that was a large piece but was still small in comparison was still too much and kind of see a little bit if you get a close up right there so there's a little puddle of silver slaughter but we're joined together all right, so then per usual we are going tio now sometimes this can get hot so be mindful of that there are rivets right here they're holding the wood on and that can be hot so you could always pick it up from the base and just clinch that whole thing and then you'll have to worry about your fingers getting burned and once again that whole hovering and testing before you do it or like that feel so hot so to me so and grab some other tongs open this up, grab it and we're good putting my tweezers down I mean little tweezers we don't want that unethical or picking up the copper ones we're putting it over here into our pit bull so be clean so once that's been shaped we would take it over or what's been cleaned which I'll just drop it in there for a half second so we can shape it I have one pre shaped here for us so we can move on but let me show you the process really quickly just so that you can kind of see how it starts to get shaped around so it's squished now if you have a lot of excess sauder here you're gonna want to file that away you can kind of see that little pink right now if you look at it close up that's the sauder um if you leave it and you start to shape it around, it can get embedded and then it's a division you can't get it out it's going to look really ugly and then you'll have to smell this time filing and filing to get it out and then you're having a thin your metal quite a bit because it's been buried so get rid of that sauder before you shape it round I'm not going to be this quick moment, but that's what you would want to dok so coming back over here way are going tio placing entre mandrell ceo take these high peaks here and start to, you know you don't have to shove it on that you wanted to be able to move around, and then just start to knock that down. A little yellow you're seeing here is flux, so could've setting to pick a little bit longer, but we're going to move on, khun. See, it starts to come to become round, and then you'll just continue making circles periodically switch directions because you're hammering on a taper. You want your ring to be tabor it's, you need to switch direction, so it doesn't happen, and eventually you can see here, that's even getting a little bit more round. Eventually we'll get there. All right, so our ring is made. This a little bit of file marks on it played a little fun getting excess sauder, but now we have our band, all right.