Jointed Ring

Promises are important to me. When I was about ten and first interested in jewelry making, I promised my sister I would make her a jointed ring. I’m keeping that promise and hopefully teaching you something as well.

My goal in making this Instructable was not only to show how to make this ring, but to give basic tips and general advice to anyone who is interested in jewelry making.

My tools and material list is different from what I write down. Purpose is more important

1. Metal sheet and wire: These can be of any metal, and are used to make the body, the rings and the rivets.
2. Solder or braze: these are alloys(mix of metals) used to bind metals together. Solder is usually made from lead or silver (use the silver solder), and braze is made from bronze.
3. Flux: this prevents oxidation, Borax is most commonly used, because it works great.
4. Heat source: Acytelene, propane, map gas, any will do, it just needs to be hot enough to melt your solder.
5. Soldering surface: this doesn’t need to be special, I use a charred piece of a pine 1x6 board
6. Non-marring Mallet: rawhide or rubber are pretty much your choice.
7. Hammer (Any will do)
8. Smooth jaw pliers: this will help shape the metal without leaving ugly gouges.
9. Cutting tool: jeweler's saw, tin snips, cold cut chisel, hacksaw, wire snips. Anything that can cut through the metal
10. Shaping tools: metal rods, just something to shape the rings .
11. Abrasive tools: files, sandpaper, anything that can remove material
12. Drill and bits
13. Center punch
14. Marking fluid (nail polish, Sharpie, blue dykem)
15. Scribe
16. Polishing tools (sandpaper, buffing wheel, polishing compound)
17. Pickling compound
18. Copper Sulfate
19. Steel wool
20. Table salt
21. Vinegar

When making a piece of jewelry or art, there is usually something that inspires the original idea, and then it grows from there. The Dragon Rider ring made by David Guyton originally inspired me (https://armortemplates.com/) about 10 years ago. This design is a derivative based upon that.

For clarity the whole ring, will be called the whole ring, The rings that rest directly around the finger are the rings, and the shell that fits around the rings and forms the joint where the rings pivot will be called the body.

This style of ring is more difficult to make fit right and comfortably than a normal ring is. For it to work well, and bend smooth you will need to be fairly precise with some measurements. You can use as many measuring devices as you’d like, or only a piece of string and a straightedge. Either way, measure from the first knuckle to the middle of the second. And the middle of the second to the third. Measure the width of the finger and from the middle on one side of the finger to the middle of the other side. Do this in the places, just above the first knuckle, in the middle of the second, and at the third. A ring gauge can be useful at this stage, but is unnecessary. Measure with string or a ring gauge at the base of the finger (where a ring would normally sit) and between the second and third knuckles.

These measurements will will give you a tapered wedge shape. The measurement of the second knuckle is where the pivot will be. Remove portion to fit over the knuckles from the center, this will be your design. Cut it out of paper for future steps.

First put marking dye (I used nail polish, and Sharpie later) on the metal sheet you will be using. Trace around your design with a metal tipped scribe or a screw into the marking dye.

Cut out the design close to your marks. I like the control of a jewelers saw, but tin snips or long cuts with a hacksaw work just as well. Use a flat file to remove material down your lines, or even just a hair past.

Use a compass to help mark smooth curves into the ring body before you shape them

At this point, remove the marking compound using either acetone to dissolve it or flame to burn it. You’ll also want to anneal or soften your metal using heat. Heat your metal red hot and quench it in water.

Using a vice lined with cardboard and leather to soften the jaws, open the jaws until a metal rod would fit with a little space on either side. Use the rod to push the ring body through the jaws of the vice. This makes a very consistent curve, without too much marring.

There are two ways to make the rings: the ring measurement, found earlier cut that length out of the wire. File the ends flat, shape into a circle.

1. Wrap the uncut wire around a rod or ring mandrel at the diameter you need. Take the wire off the mandrel and, using a jeweler’s saw, cut the ring out of the tight spiral you made. File and match up the ends. This tends to use slightly more material, but the ring solders easier, the ends match up better, and is more precisely sized. At this point solder the rings( more details in a future step.)

Wrapping the paper used to mark out the body of the ring around the rings, use a scribe to mark the edges Using a file, remove material between the two marks. This is to allow the body of the ring to sit flush with the ring itself.

th]the body of the rings onto their matching ring, it’s time to mark rivet placement. I find it easiest to mark symmetrical rivets on the paper design , and then mark them onto the body of the ring. Drill through this mark into the ring below. Put a bit of wire in the hole to hold it in place and then drill the next hole. This will help keep everything lined up.

Some general soldering advice x solder follows heat and flux when it flows. This is important with parts of different thicknesses. In this pro thinner piece of metal will heat first and draw the solder away from the on joint. Evenly preheating the metal will mitigate this. Another technique is to put the heat on one side of the joint and the solder on the other. The heat will draw the solder across the joint

Solder does not like to fill gaps. Getting the pieces as close to matching before attempting to solder will help you love life.

Using a thin piece of metal called a solder pick is my preferred method for placing solder. You can hold the wire of solder and apply it that way, or place the solder before you begin heating, nothing wrong with either. I enjoy the accuracy of the solder pick though. Cut the length of solder you need and gently heat it and the tip of your pick with a torch. Once the solder rolls into a ball, poke it with your pick and it will stick. It can now be moved with the pick wherever you want to put it.

Solder the ring joints, flux the joint, heat until the flux looks like water, move the heat to one side of the joint, and place the solder on the other. Carefully control your torch to prevent solder going where you don’t want it to, as it can run suddenly.

After drilling the holes in the ring for the rivets. Taper the end of the wire that will become the rivet Using Flux the rivet and push it through the hole so it extends into the ring. You do not want the rivet riveted inside the ring, it will rub and be uncomfortable. For that reason, we will solder flush in the ring and rivet the body. Heat the ring gently. When the flux looks like water, put the solder on the inside rivet and draw it through the ring with the torch. Once cool, snip the inside of the rivets off and file flush.

Fit the body pieces and rings together. Solder them a little just for extra stability where the cut out in the rings meet the matching body.

Rivets are easy, unless you try to give yourself wiggle room. If you try to hammer a rivet that is too long, it will bend more than mushroom and can ruin your day. I find trimming the rivets with wire cutters, short side down, will give about the right length.

Trim the rivets, file them flat, and hammer them over. Use a mandrel or piece of metal to act as an anvil on the other side of the rivet. Otherwise, you’ll just bend the heck out of your project.

The rivets in the dark are slightly more difficult, but not much. Push them equally through with just a little on either side. Support the back as before, then rivet slightly more tightly than It will work its way to perfect smoothness without side-to-side play.

No project is without its pitfalls. This was no different.

I wasn’t paying attention and melted one of the pivot point. To fix this made a straight cut, across the ring.I then butted up a new squre of copper and soldered it in place. Putting sharpie on it, and using the paper design, I was able to mark and cut the new copper back to the original shape.

Not sure what happened here, but I think someone ran over it in a rolly chair. Annealing the copper will soften it and make it possible to reshape the copper without it tearing or cracking.

This rolly chair incident also pulled one of the rivets out, so I had to make a new one. No problem. No matter what mistake you make, there is a way of fixing it. Each of these issues left some scars, but the end result was satisfactory.

The mix of copper and silver was not the effect I wanted. I wanted pure copper. If I was better at this wouldn’t have been an issue. Working within our limitations often takes extra steps, but that’s ok.

I coated the completed ring using a recipe I learned from Gomeow on Youtube. link

THIS MIXTURE IS TOXIC AND CAN CAUSE BLINDNESS. DONT BE DUMB. BE SAFE. USE APPROPRIATE SAFETY PRECAUTIONS INCLUDING SAFETY GEAR.

This doesn’t need to be particularly accurate, but you'll need:

1. Copper Sulfate (this provides the copper coating)
2. Table salt
3. Vinegar
4. Steel wool.
5. A glass dish that will not be used for food, or drink.

Put copper sulfate and the salt in the glass dish. The ratio is around 4:1 or 6:1 salt. This ratio can go up to Copper Sulfate 6:1 salt. Fill the rest of the dish with vinegar. Use a piece of copper to mix the solution until all is dissolved. Wrap a small piece of copper wire around the ring to act as a handle, then wrap the ring and wire with steel wool and submerge it in the solution. The steel wool will react with the copper sulfate and pull the pure copper into solution. This will take about 10 minutes and will coat the ring in a thin layer of copper. I did this process twice, cleaning off the excess copper between each dip, to get the thickness of copper I wanted. The steel wool will be dissolved during this process. If you need to do it more than once, you must wrap the object in steel wool again. Be sure to clean the ring, as oils will prevent the copper coating.

All projects follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of the project is done with 20% of the effort. And 20% of the project takes 80% of the effort. This sums up the finishing process for this ring. If you don’t have a machine, this will drive you nuts and make you tired.

I was very blessed to be given a polishing machine by a jewelry instructor some years ago. However, if you don’t have one, you can polish by hand, or with a Dremel. Polishing by hand is great if you’re just starting and are needing to pinch pennies. However, it is time consuming, and not necessarily any more traditional than a machine. Water powered polishing wheels have been around since the middle ages. If jewelry making is something you wish to do long term, this is something you will want to invest in.

I used, I think, white jewelers rouge. I was given this, and am not entirely sure what it is, but it works great. If you don’t have, this mystery compound, you can use the white, green, and blue polishing compounds from Harbor Freight, in that order. A Dremel with a buffing wheel works the same way, it will just take slightly longer.

If polishing by hand, use sand paper and then cloths coated with the polishing polishing compounds. Move through higher and higher grits. Consistency is the key to get the hand polish looking good.

1. I used a store bought copper sheet, recycled 6awg wire, rolled to 6awg half round, and 12 or 14 awg round wire. I’m fortunate enough to have saved my money for a wire mill years ago, so I can shape a bunch of wire easily. If you don’t have a mill, it can be bought as half round wire.

-Expanded Tools and Materials

1. Use silver solder from a jewelry supply store (or make your own). Plumbing and electronics solder often contain lead, and unless you want to out think whomever ends up the ring, avoid lead.Solder and brazing is basically the same process. Solder works at a lower temperature than braze which can help prevent over heating and damaging the work piece (in the business we call that foreshadowing)