I made this ring for my sister for her birthday this year. I decided that I would take pictures of the process as I made the ring. This is the first time I have ever taken pictures of my process, so I think I may have skipped some steps and am not sure that it will be all that clear...here is the final ring....
I started with a single sheet of sterling silver. I cut my measured portion and then I stamped inside a saying that I thought fit the relationship between my big sis and I. "I'm smiling because you're my sister. I'm laughing because there's nothing you can do about it." I then formed the sheet into a circle on my ring mandrel. Made sure the seam of the ring was even and soldered.
Once I had the seam soldered, I had to pickle it. Pickling is a way to remove firescale (the yucky
mess you see above in the last picture). It is an acid bath you stick your sterling into and it takes
the gross firescale off. After that, I hammered the edges into a flare, then bent them back onto themselves
(like rolling a shirt cuff) and hammered them down. I then hammered the ring to give it texture.
Next I added three spinning rings. Two of plain sterling bands and one of a twisted sterling wire. I soldered the rings around the band (so they move freely) and put the ring back into the pickle. See how
clean the pickle makes it?
The ring then gets filed and sanded to make sure there are no rough edges and to remove dirt and debri from it. After sanding and filing, it goes into a liver of sulfer bath to give it a dark patina (to turn it black).
Once out of the LOS, it gets a little shine and I remove the patina that I don't want on the ring with some steel wool. When its ready, I put it in the tumbler and tumble for a couple of hours. The tumbler shines and hardens the silver so it is less likely to bend or break.
Once out of the tumbler, the ring is shiny and ready to go!
I took pictures, packed it up and shipped it off! Hope you love it sis!
