A Ring For Jackie

Here is my first blog of 2013.  I was kind of busy at the end of 2012.  I had a request to make a ring so I set about it just before Christmas.  The first thing to do was to size it correctly so I measured Jackie's finger and determined he was a size G.  That was the easy part.  I was making the ring from metal clay, which shrinks by 8-9% when it is fired in a kiln so the ring has to be made bigger to allow for shrinkage.  I keep a log of everything I make so that I can learn from experience.  As you can see from my calculations below, a size K was about the perfect size to shrink to a G.

And here is the 'before' photo.  This is the piece of silver clay that I used to make the ring.  it doesn't look like much does it?  It looks more like a piece of chewing gum than anything related to silver but this will be transformed into a Fine Silver (99.9% silver) ring.

First the clay has to be kneaded and softened, taking care not to dry it out in the process.  Even the heat from your hands can be enough to dry it out so it's usually kneaded inside a piece of cling film.  Once it was softened it was time to shape it.  For a textured ring, I would roll it out with a tiny plastic roller and use a texture mat to give it a pattern.  This time I wanted a smooth ring with a groove so I decided to use a mould.  I used plastic moulding material that is softened by hot water and a bamboo knitting needle to create a rounded ring mould then let it cool down to harden.

When the mould had hardened I removed the knitting needle then coated the surface lightly with olive oil to prevent the clay from sticking.  I rolled the clay into a snake shape and pressed it firmly into the mould.  After a couple of minutes, I carefully prised it out of the mould and laid it carefully on my cutting tile where I used a very sharp blade to carefully cut off any excess clay.  Next, I wrapped a ring paper around my ring mandrel and marked it where it was size K.  The next step is the tricky one.  This is where I had to drape my tiny clay snake round the ring paper and carefully turn the mandrel until the two ends overlapped then cut through the two layers where I wanted the ends of the ring to join.  I got there in the end and carefully removed the ring, still on the paper, so that it could dry.

Next is the time consuming part - waiting for it to dry then sanding and shaping it, inspecting for dents, cracks, etc. and fixing them, waiting for it to dry again and then repeating the process until it looks the way it should.  The clay is very delicate in this state so great care has to be taken not to break it or it's back to the drawing board.  After a few days of this routine it was almost ready to fire in the kiln but there was one more thing I needed to do.  The ring was supposed to have a groove all the way round so I carefully marked the location of the groove with a pencil.  I used a very fine, sharp sculpting tool to start off the groove then made it wider and deeper with a diamond file.  I fetched my kiln, set it up put the ring on a piece of firing blanket on the shelf and switched it on.  Silver clay needs to be fired at a minimum temperature of 650 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes so I'd to wait just over 20 minutes for the kiln to reach temperature then start timing it.  Here is the 'cooked' ring.

Yes, I know.  It doesn't look a whole lot different from the uncooked version you saw a couple of paragraphs ago.  To begin the transformation it needs to be brushed first with a brass wire brush.  This results in a matt / satin silver finish.  I gave the inside of the ring a gentle rub with some very fine sandpaper then checked it with the ring guage.  Size G  - perfect!  I started to polish it inside and out using a metal burnisher to bring it to a glossy shine and here is the finished article:

A ring is born

This is the story of Stoo's ring.  Stoo is one of The Boy's friends.  He saw the silver ring I made at my silver clay class last year and asked me to make him a thumb ring. That was a while ago.  It's not that I haven't wanted to make his ring.  I've just been putting it off because I only had one pack of silver clay and I didn't want to mess it up.

At the end of last week The Boy asked when I was going to make Stoo's ring & I figured I didn't really have any excuses so I should just get on with it.  The main reason for my reluctance is that there are so many standards for ring sizes.  I learned using Japanese sizes but only have UK & US ring gauges so I knew I was going to have to do some calculations to work out shrinkage before I started.

So I got out all the size conversion charts I'd downloaded and tried to work it out in UK sizes. Stoo's thumb is a size Y so what size do I need to make the unfired ring to allow for 8-9% shrinkage?  After checking & triple checking I convinced myself it needed to be Z+4, 5 whole sizes bigger.  I was a bit worried that the guidance for US sizes was to go 2 sizes bigger and for Japanese sizes to go 3 sizes bigger.  Then I realised that UK sizes are a lot closer together than US or Japanese and relaxed a bit.

First I decided to prepare my ring mandrel.  Challenge no. 1 - even the thick end of my mandrel was too small for size Z+4.  Solution - tape paper round the mandrel to pad it out:

Challenge no. 2 soon followed - the ring papers were just too small to join around the mandrel.  Solution - use a teeny piece of sellotape to stop the paper pinging off.

Now I was ready to get the clay out and make the ring.  It took a few attempts & some extra clay before I actually had enough to go around the mandrel enough to join it properly.  And that's when I found out that there was sellotape somewhere it shouldn't be and I couldn't move the paper.  The ring fell apart and that was that - back to the drawing board again.

Brainwave - I fetched the greaseproof paper from the kitchen and wrapped the mandrel again:

That helped so I was finally able to construct the ring on the mandrel.  I slid the whole lot down the mandrel slightly and left it all to dry overnight.  I checked it with the ring gauge to make sure it was was still sitting at size Z+4.  Here we have a not very good photo of the ring, all dried and ready to be sanded and filed and inspected:

There was a disappointing number of fine cracks in the pattern but I suppose that's only to be expected considering how many times I had to start over and that the clay seemed to dry out very quickly even though I was working it inside cling film as much as possible.  For the next few hours I kept coming back to check it under the magnifying light, carefully dabbing a teeny amount of water or slip on any cracks and leaving it to dry.

I took my time about sanding the edges and the inside and carefully bevelling the inside edge so that it wouldn't be sharp against Stoo's delicate skin. :o)

Finally I felt ready to fire it.  I laid it on a piece of firing blanket on top of the kiln shelf and cooked it at 650 degrees for 30 minutes.  I plunged it into cold water then took it away and gave it a first polish with a brass brush:

That doesn't look too bad does it?  I checked it with the ring gauge again it measures size Y - result!  My calculations were correct.  Just need Stoo to try it on his thumb now to be sure it fits.  Then I have to send it to the Assay Office to be hallmarked before he takes possession of it.

I've been going back to it now and then throughout the day with sand paper, the burnisher and polishing papers and I'm happy with how it looks.  I hope Stoo likes it too.

 

If making rings for boys is going to become a habit I need to buy a bigger mandrel.

Something for the boys

For a few months now The Boy has been suggesting rather heavily (I hesitate to say nagging) that I should make him something.  He's not big into jewellery so we agreed I'd make him a pair of cuff links.  I've spent many an hour on the web looking for suitable components:

Metal toggles / bars / treasury tags

Chain

Buttons or charms to use as the focal point

I had actually bought a pack of silver plated toggle clasps so that I could steal the toggle part to make the cuff links with as I had been unable to find the toggle bars for sale on their own.  Then The Boy says "we're going to a charity ceilidh with the scuba club so why don't you make me cuff links with scuba divers on them?"  I explained my difficulties in finding single toggle bars to use as a backing for the cufflinks.

"Google it." he says.

"I did." I say.

"But did you Google 'cuff link bars'?" he says.

"No" I say "because that's not what they're normally called."

"Try it." he says.

So I did ..... and what did I find?  Bona fide sterling silver cufflink bars.  Trust The Boy to be right!  He also found some sterling silver scuba diver charms on eBay that were of a suitable quality to meet his exacting standards.  So I ordered everything and last night I sat and made my first pair of cuff links.  Cute are they not?  They should be! The parts cost a small fortune.  He had better wear them more than once!

So do I now have a future making cuff links?  That really depends on how much I can buy decent components for.  If they are all as expensive as the parts for the scuba diver ones no-one would ever want to buy them.  So ... the search continues.  Wish me luck.