[:en]I’ve been working on silver rings. The first one was made with thick D wire, standard for rings, but with the ends hammered and filed round. I used D wire instead of round because this way I can have the inside of the ring flat while the outside stays rounded. I could also hammer round wire to make it flat (like in the next ring) but then the outside would also be flattened.
This following ring was made much in the same way but using round wire. I hammered it in the center to make it flat and then hammered the end at a 90 degree angle and filed the ends round. This wire was longer to allow the ends to overlap creating the ‘bunny ears’. A variation on this theme would be tying a knot at the top – something I’m planning on trying as well. The dowside is that with a knot the ring is no longer adjustable, so this model is more versatile, especially when you don’t make it for yourself.
This ring below I made for my husband using silver sheet. After cutting the sheet I filed the ends round and then textured the surface using a hammer, screw-driver and a greed scrubbing pad. I stamped the letters and then I oxidised it with liver of sulfur. The letters didn’t come up as dark as I wanted (probably because I keep the punches oiled to prevent them from rusting) so I used a permanent marker to darken the grooves.
After shaping the ring I polished it with steel wool, leaving the dents dark to accentuate the texture.
The texture and width give the ring a masculine feel and I was pleased with the result.
For the final ring I just expanded on the previous. I used the same silver sheet base with rounded corners but made a more subtle texture and didn’t oxidise. Then I soldered some wire ends with a ball tip along the front of the ring. After pickling and cleaning it, I weaved thin silver wire with amethyst chips around the wire ends, using them as supports. When the front was covered I bent the wire tips into an arch so that the ball ends were touching the base of the ring and then polished it with jeweller’s rouge and a Dremel. I should probably do the polish and even bending the tips before attaching the beads, but I was improvising a bit so the order of steps didn’t come out quite as perfect as it should be, but the end result is quite striking and next time I’ll find an easier way to do it – for example: it would have saved time to solder a single wire across the base instead of two tips but I didn’t think of that until I was halfway through. Silly, hum?
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