I did it and it looks so good!

[Magpie]

The title is the text I sent my friend this afternoon.

Ages ago (last April, where did that time go?) I asked a question on here of the silversmiths about resizing my wedding ring.

George replied saying about ring clips as temporary things but also.....

....it's something you could do yourself if you wanted.....

Anyhow, I've had a ring clip, but I agree they're for temporary use only as the prongs catch, then they break and you bind it all together with copper wire because that's what you have and then it doesn't look pretty at all. So about 3 weeks ago I went on a 2 hour 'course' to 'learn' how to make rings. I played with some copper sheet, some silver sheet and made 2 rings, one copper and one silver. A not very good photo....

image by HelenPetersBeads, on Flickr

And I booked in again for today to go and have a play with my wedding ring. I started off by making a spinner ring to practice the techniques I learnt 3 weeks ago, just to make sure I knew what I was doing, sized to fit my daughter, hammered silver with a plain silver band. Very fiddly getting the outer band to fit loose enough to spin but not so loose that it needs too much flaring on the under-ring. It came out really well, I'm rather impressed with it! A much better photo....

image by HelenPetersBeads, on Flickr

Then while it was tumbling we started on my wedding ring. The sizing didn't have enough leeway to turn it into a spinner ring like I originally intended so it's just been lined. Started with the silver sheet, cut to size, then we had to roll it to make it thinner otherwise I couldn't get my finger in, shaped it to a round, get it to fit into my ring, anneal my ring and stretch it slightly, trim the silver, reshape the silver, eventually we got it in but with a bit of an overlap but Aileen went at it with the hammer and eventually got rid of the overlap (then tried to centre it, the wedding ring just wouldn't sit centrally on the silver all the way round and we decided it was probably out of true itself so carried on). Then it was a tight fit so we (that's the royal 'we', Aileen did it, I bottled due to not wanting to 'hurt' my wedding ring!!) ended up soldering it in situ (didn't want to destroy all the good work we'd done wedging it in by trying to get it out only to solder it and have to get it back in again), and at that point it didn't look much good, rather scruffy with sharp edges. But then the magic happened, I started to flare the ends with the dapping punches which made the silver sit tight against the gold and suddenly it looks fantastic (a bit like when I made my wedding dress, it looked rather Meh! But putting the boning into the bodice and it just seemed to transform into what it was meant to look like)! A quick file to smooth off any sharp edges and a polish and hey presto, stupendous!

The final thing.....

image by HelenPetersBeads, on Flickr

It's a perfect fit, thanks to the flaring, at one point I thought it was going to be too tight.


And both rings from today (just coz I'm so so pleased with them!)....

image by HelenPetersBeads, on Flickr

[GaysieMay]

Wow! They are all fantastic!

[mizgeorge]

Well done Helen - it looks great (as do the other pieces!)

[Glassy Lou]

Love love love them!

[Nicknack]

Gorgeous!  Very well done!

Nick

[Steampunkglass]

Fantastic! 

[Madam Steph]

A lovely job!
Bet it was worth it, Helen

Linda x

[Lynnybobs]

Fabulous rings there well done !

[flowerjasper]

brilliant job 

[Dee Dee]

Good job Helen, you should be so proud yourself!  I'm very impressed !!!   I love the slider ring too!

[Margram]

A real achievement!

[JKC]

They are lovely. Janet

[garishglobes]

That's wonderful! Beautiful results all round 

[Pat from Canvey]

It's all been said but well done for making the effort to learn a new skill. It will probably give you more ideas on how to present your beads/cabs/pendants or other glassy things.

[MeadMoon]

Well done, they look wonderful.  I would never have had the courage to do anything to my wedding ring.