[HN Gopher] Making my own wedding rings
___________________________________________________________________
Making my own wedding rings
Author : robenkleene
Score : 263 points
Date : 2024-07-08 20:29 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (geoff.greer.fm)
(TXT) w3m dump (geoff.greer.fm)
| doctoboggan wrote:
| When I was getting married a few years ago I started down this
| path as well. However I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to
| get the quality I wanted so I ended up finding someone who would
| be able to 3d print and cast my design. There are casting houses
| out in LA that will accept a STL file and will 3d print, cast,
| and finish your ring for you. The price is very reasonable, just
| labor and a bit of a premium on top of the spot gold price.
|
| Using that experience I ended up starting a side business where I
| sell custom designed jewelry. My most popular design incorporates
| my customer's fingerprints. I build a pipeline that lets me go
| from a jpeg or other image file of the fingerprint to a fully 3d
| printable STL file (mostly using the blender python API). Because
| there are so many casting houses in LA they compete to keep the
| prices down. My completely custom rings that I have cast in small
| batches (compared to the large chains), are still very cost
| competitive with the competition.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Has anyone including you stopped to think of the security
| implications of of making a thumbprint jewelry like this?
| meatmanek wrote:
| You leak your fingerprints every time you touch a smooth
| surface; one extra copy on an unlikely-to-be-lost item
| doesn't really increase your risk much.
| sunshinesnacks wrote:
| I never wear my rings places where I don't also bring my
| fingers, and rings don't leave oily prints like my fingers
| do. Sarcasm aside, I'm not sure how this is a security risk.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| In 2014[0], someone stole the German Defense Minister's
| fingerprint from a picture. We are well past the point
| where you can assume your biometrics are secure.
|
| [0] https://www.theregister.com/2014/12/29/german_minister_
| finge...
| dylan604 wrote:
| I guess you can go ahead and take "criminal mastermind"
| from your CV! Why would I think that a physical 3D object
| with the pattern of my fingerprint that can be carried
| around and held up to anything might possibly be a security
| issue? Nope, I can't think of anything...
| krisoft wrote:
| > I guess you can go ahead and take "criminal mastermind"
| from your CV!
|
| Careful, your sarcasm is dripping!
|
| > Why would I think that a physical 3D object with the
| pattern of my fingerprint that can be carried around and
| held up to anything might possibly be a security issue?
|
| Have you looked at the image of the ring? How do you plan
| to scan that anywhere?
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Do you have an image? I am struggling to imagine how/where you
| squeeze in a fingerprint unless it is really scaled down or
| some kind of wrap around the band.
|
| Are the grooves deeply etched? Or coated with some kind of
| protective layer? I imagine a few years of friction would rub
| away the finer details.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| Sure, here is an image:
|
| https://lulimjewelry.com/cdn/shop/products/fingerprint-
| close...
|
| The grooves are cast quite deeply. I don't anticipate any
| problems and I've been wearing mine for 7 years.
| zachthewf wrote:
| We had a great experience doing this in a much less hardcore way
| through this company: https://withtheseringshandmade.com/
|
| I'd recommend to anyone who is interested but does not have the
| skills to make a ring on your own. Great weekend trip from
| Seattle too.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| How much did you end up paying?
| zachthewf wrote:
| I don't remember exactly, but somewhere in the neighborhood
| of $1,000.
| ygra wrote:
| We did something like that as well. Cost was comparable to just
| buying rings (most of that was the gold, anyway). We started
| with a blank strip of metal with the correct cross-section,
| which was first bent, then soldered together, then sized
| appropriately and polished. Was a fun day.
| Bluestein wrote:
| > I'm reminded of the trial and error, the mistakes, the
| frustrations, the determination to keep working through problems,
| and the eventual beautiful success.
|
| > Hmm. That almost sounds like a relationship.
|
| Best bit.-
|
| Wishing them all success.-
| themadturk wrote:
| My wife's father was a gemologist and metalsmith. When we got
| married 42 years ago, he made both of our wedding rings -- lost
| wax casting, of course, since 3D printing wasn't a thing. Mine is
| a plain rose gold band, hers is antiqued gold leaves surround a
| diamond (he was an experienced gem faceter, but would not touch
| diamonds, which he'd rarely worked with, so ours came from a
| diamond dealer). He had me pour the gold for both rings. It's
| nice to have a story to go with them!
| gregschlom wrote:
| > lost wax casting, of course, since 3D printing wasn't a thing
|
| Just to nitpick, even with 3D printing these days, the process
| is still called lost wax casting. The printer prints a wax
| version of the model, and then the plaster is poured around it
| to make a mold and the wax model is melted out.
|
| The only difference is that the wax model is made by a 3d
| printer rather than by hand.
| ortusdux wrote:
| There are burnout printer filaments and resins as well, so
| I've heard it referred as 'lost plastic' casting
|
| https://helpcenter.phrozen3d.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/632528374...
| alvah wrote:
| To nitpick your nitpick, lost PLA casting is most definitely
| a thing; no wax required.
| willcipriano wrote:
| I've seen: 3d print a part (resin printer), make a mold from
| the 3d printed part with modeling clay or whatever, cast wax
| in the mold and then sand cast metal with the wax casting.
|
| I think the 3d printed part wouldn't burn away as cleanly as
| the wax that is designed for that purpose. Probably faster if
| you want more than one as well.
| gregschlom wrote:
| This is cool but for people without access to all the tools, a
| much easier way is to just upload your design to Shapeways.com
| and let them take care of all the casting.
| (https://www.shapeways.com/materials/gold)
|
| You can also have your design done in brass first for relatively
| cheap, to validate the design.
|
| I made our wedding rings that way, as well as quite a bit of
| jewelry over the years for my spouse. (pendants, earrings,
| etc...)
| hooverd wrote:
| Unfortunately... https://hackaday.com/2024/07/04/shapeways-
| files-for-bankrupt...
|
| You wouldn't guess it from their website at the moment though.
| agg23 wrote:
| I did this with silver (see my other comment) and it was a
| great experience. I was very sad to hear Shapeways is shutting
| down.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| A couple fun facts about casting metals:
|
| Many of them shrink when they solidify. For the size and
| tolerances needed for a ring you can probably ignore this detail.
| You can get what is called a low-shrink mold made for some alloys
| that helps mitigate this if you want to make your prototype to
| finished size (or you didn't know better before you takes to the
| jeweler).
|
| Patternmakers deal with this using what are called shrink rules.
| They look like regular rules, but are e.g. 5% longer. If you're
| buying an old rule, make sure you don't get one by mistake.
|
| Silver rings, worn regularly, won't need to be polished to keep
| the tarnish at bay; the contact from your skin will do quite well
| enough. Our wedding rings are also silver, and I've only polished
| mine when I haven't worn it for a while. Ours probably don't
| polish up to quite the same luster though. They're a regular
| alloy of silver for jewelry and not silver and gold.
| ggreer wrote:
| I was worried about the metal shrinking, but I only had to
| increase the size of my prints by 1.6% to get the desired ring
| size. eg: The PLA ring had an inner diameter of 16.8mm and the
| casting had a diameter of 16.5mm.
|
| Thanks for the info about the lack of tarnish. I'm glad I won't
| have to do much maintenance.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Since you cast this a few times, I have to ask: did you
| determine the shrink ratio empirically or were you able to
| look it up? This is a super cool project, and I'm impressed
| that you got it done before the wedding!
| ggreer wrote:
| I looked around online and answers ranged from no shrinkage
| to 6%. For my first attempt I split the difference (3%),
| then measured the actual diameter with calipers. Also I
| tended to err on the side of making the ring too small, as
| it's pretty easy to remove material from the inside of the
| ring.
| Lev1a wrote:
| Even if you have tarnished silver things, like silver(-plated)
| cutlery etc. the "un-tarnishing" is stupid easy and cheap to
| do:
|
| - take some container and put warm/hot water and a large
| helping of (table) salt into it
|
| - put some scrunched up Al foil into the water
|
| - submerge the objects to be untarnished in the water so that
| the silver touches the Al foil
|
| - leave for a while in a well ventilated area (since it will
| smell of rotten eggs)
|
| - rinse well
|
| - done.
|
| recipe from a kid's chemistry set I had a looooong while ago,
| used it successfully quite a few times on my parents' silver-
| plated cutlery they've had and used regularly since their
| wedding decades ago.
| interludead wrote:
| Yet this shrinkage is typically minimal
| ulysses1244 wrote:
| I am in the process of doing this as well, but I'm trying to stay
| on a tight budget.
|
| After 10 failures and different trials, this is my rough process:
| - Melt fine silver with a butane torch
|
| - Pour it into a circle mold with a metal rod in the middle
| (makeshift ring mold). I tried sand casting with a wax mold but
| couldn't keep the metal hot enough to fill the chamber.
|
| - Hammer the ring on metal ring mandrel to shape and increase the
| size. This took probably 5,000 light hits with a metal hammer,
| periodically annealing.
|
| - Use a dremel and grinding stone to further shape it
|
| - Sand and polish by hand
|
| Since I shaped it with a metal hammer, it has a really nice and
| natural hammer finish that I plan to keep.
|
| I'm considering trying to electroplate it in palladium since the
| fine silver will tarnish and scratch over time, but it'll be
| harder to fix inevitable mistakes.
| ggreer wrote:
| How did you deal with the molten silver dissolving oxygen from
| the atmosphere? Even if you keep it under a reducing flame,
| you'll have to take the flame off eventually and some O2 will
| get in, which will cause defects as the metal solidifies.
| bigiain wrote:
| I wonder if using the gas shroud from a mig/tig welder might
| work?
| ulysses1244 wrote:
| Yes this definitely happens to an extent. I mostly solved it
| by grinding away the outside. I used 2x the amount of silver
| that I ultimately needed, knowing I'd have to remove some.
|
| I'm figuring it out as I go, but it doesn't seem to be a
| major issue.
| HanClinto wrote:
| Excellent post! Excellent problem-solving, and very nice result!!
|
| Taking a completely direction, my wife and I made our own wedding
| rings out of stainless steel (a low-nickel alloy suitable for
| contact with skin -- 316L, I think), and we milled them on a
| lathe in my employer's machine shop after hours. Nearly 20 years
| later, and they have held up remarkably well.
|
| If you're going to lathe a ring, make sure you do as much shaping
| and polishing before you detach it from the rest of the rod, and
| then create a mandrel that is the correct size to hold the ring
| (using friction) from the other direction. Hammer it onto the
| mandrel, do your final burr-removal and polishing, then pop it
| off the hammer.
|
| Important side note: Don't do a test-fit before taking the burr
| off, or else you'll slice the skin on your finger all the way
| 'round in a very nice ring-shaped pattern and it will be the
| absolute dickens to try and get it off. Maybe don't ask me how I
| know...
| snitty wrote:
| One big warning with this is that if you get into an accident
| and the doctors need to remove your ring, they're going to have
| a very hard time cutting stainless steel off your finger.
|
| I saw a video of someone making a ring out of polycrystalline
| diamond and...if that gets stuck for some reason, it's never
| coming off.
| a2l3aQ wrote:
| Couldn't you just shatter the diamond with minimal risk to
| the actual finger?
| RandallBrown wrote:
| Probably. That's how they get tungsten carbide rings off.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I was rotating the carbides on a wood planer and a couple
| of them were held in by machine screws that weren't
| budging. I called Byrd, and their recommendation once
| you've stripped the screws is to shatter the inserts. I
| put a crappy chisel underneath and whacked it with a
| hammer.
|
| I can confirm that it works. I heartily recommend a face
| shield, and I wouldn't want to be the first guy the
| doctor had to break a ring off of.
| HanClinto wrote:
| Other than a few comments on Reddit, every jewelry site that
| I've looked up says that stainless steel can be cut off with
| regular ring cutting tools.
|
| The biggest difficulty that I know of with it is that the
| material is not very workable, and so if you need to get the
| ring resized, you may be out of luck.
| esaym wrote:
| A Dremel with a regular cut off wheel would cut right through
| titanium.
| michaelrpeskin wrote:
| I did a similar thing using some titanium out of the scrap bin.
| (Yes, I know that it will be nearly impossibly to cut off in an
| emergency, but we just take them off before we go climb or do
| other dangerous stuff.) It's been 15 years and they still look
| great. I left the tool marks on them, I liked how it looked
| like it was machined.
| generalizations wrote:
| FYI, only time I've known of a ring being cut off was due to
| a bee sting on the finger, causing it to swell.
| niloc132 wrote:
| Another anecdote for your collection: my father fell off a
| ladder last year - not far enough to sustain any injury,
| but far enough to catch his ring slightly in trying to
| regain his balance. Finger ended up swelling enough that
| the ring was a problem, ended up having to be cut off.
|
| I wouldn't have imagined that a fall off of the second step
| of a ladder could result in the destruction of a 40 year
| old wedding ring either, but here we are!
| tim333 wrote:
| You can get it fixed https://youtu.be/aX866Kx4oU8
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Destruction? My wife crushed hers onto her finger in a
| cycle crash. It was across the park from our house. Her
| finger swelled terribly. I put her in the car and drove
| her to the fire station just down the road where they cut
| it off. I learned there was a special tool for this! I
| sent the cut ring to a jeweller friend of a friend... who
| melted it down and cast it into a slightly smaller ring!
| Edit: in another post there isa video where someone
| solders up a cut ring. My wife's ring was much more
| damaged by the crash than the rings in the video, hence
| the melt
| exe34 wrote:
| can you precut it, then solder/polish it to hide the cut?
| Aurornis wrote:
| > titanium out of the scrap bin. (Yes, I know that it will be
| nearly impossibly to cut off in an emergency,
|
| Most commercial grades of Titanium can be cut with common
| tools. The tools will dull faster, but it's not impossible.
|
| I suspect a lot of the stories about Ti rings being
| impossible to cut are coming from people who confuse Titanium
| with Tungsten. People get exotic metals mixed up all the
| time.
|
| On the other hand, if you pulled it from the scrap bin you
| may have gotten some extreme aerospace grade of Titanium that
| really is difficult to cut.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Even Tungsten isn't particularly hard to cut. Also truly
| Tungsten rings are a lot less common.
|
| Most of the rings referred to as Tungsten rings are
| actually Tungsten Carbide. Tungsten Carbide rings, by
| comparison, is VERY hard to cut. You basically need a
| diamond blade/saw/grinding wheel to cut through TC.
| Faaak wrote:
| Yet, you (gently) smash it with a hammer and it breaks to
| pieces. By adding a block that is a bit thicker than the
| finger bone, you prevent smashing your finger in the
| process
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Locking pliers (aka vise grips) are a good tool for it,
| since you can set how wide the jaws will close
|
| https://youtu.be/poM423pewRE?t=147
| amluto wrote:
| > a low-nickel alloy suitable for contact with skin -- 316L, I
| think
|
| Now I'm curious: why use any nickel at all? Plenty of stainless
| steels (including, AIUI, basically all the tool steels) don't
| use nickel, and many of them have excellent corrosion
| resistance. Is austentitic steel enough easier to machine to
| make it worthwhile?
| HanClinto wrote:
| Shorter answer: We don't know -- those are good questions!
|
| Longer answer: It was 20 years ago, and we aren't exactly
| metallurgists. IIRC, at the time it was something to do with
| a variety of "surgical stainless" to focus on the best
| corrosion resistance combined with something that was
| somewhat machinable. At the time, I think we were comparing
| 304 (easier to machine, much worse corrosion resistance) vs.
| 316 (harder to machine, but much better corrosion
| resistance). I think looking at metals that we were able to
| source in partial lengths might have been a factor as well.
|
| In hindsight, one might be able to find something with better
| properties in a more specialized alloy, but if I had to do it
| over again, I would 100% be willing to choose the 316L again.
| I have zero complaints with it, and the corrosion resistance
| it offers is superb. In 20 years, I've never polished my ring
| once, and it still has that mirror-finish quality (especially
| on the inside where it has never brushed concrete).
|
| I rarely take the ring off (sometimes when juggling) -- I
| don't worry about it and leave it on even when using tools or
| scrambling up a rock ledge or carrying cinder blocks or
| whatever. Very occasionally it will get scratches (concrete
| is one of the few things that has left a mark from time to
| time), but they're never very severe scratches, and they buff
| out nice and naturally over time. I imagine that I would be
| much more concerned about a softer precious metal, and I'm
| glad I have a more durable ring instead.
| eru wrote:
| > I imagine that I would be much more concerned about a
| softer precious metal, and I'm glad I have a more durable
| ring instead.
|
| Well, you could also just live with the scratches in your
| ring (if you had one made of eg silver) and declare them
| part of how it matures with the passage of time. Just like
| copper gets a patina, too.
|
| (I'm glad you are happy with your ring! I'm just saying
| that if people decide to be happy, they'll find a
| justification to be happy with what they have. And if they
| decide to be unhappy, they'll find a reason, too.)
| HanClinto wrote:
| Great point -- well said! :)
| rkagerer wrote:
| For what it's worth 316 is more corrosion resistant than
| 304 in saltwater environments and I've been trying to find
| various fasteners made of it for my boat.
| amluto wrote:
| If you're in the US, try McMaster-Carr.
| amluto wrote:
| Here's a study on this very issue:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/00109
| 3...
|
| Conclusion: 304 and 316 are probably fine, as is 430 (which
| should be entirely unsurprising due to its near lack of
| nickel), but 303 would be a poor choice.
| pengaru wrote:
| Being stainless does that mean you could blue them by heating
| to ... what was it, 550F?
| HanClinto wrote:
| Ooooh, that's a really fun idea!
| pengaru wrote:
| This instructable seems like a decent intro for a home
| gamer with a kitchen oven if you wanted to experiment:
|
| https://www.instructables.com/Home-Oven-Steel-
| TemperingColor...
| HanClinto wrote:
| Excellent example! That's a really excellent
| instructable.
|
| Reading that page, it's interesting that the stainless
| steel rivets and fastener hardware are the only bits that
| didn't color. Quoting from the article:
|
| > It is possible that the stainless steel might start to
| color if left in the oven for longer but my cursory
| research lead me to believe that stainless needs to get
| to about 800F to color. My oven certainly can't do that.
|
| I've heard that welding stainless steel gets it too hot
| and removes something (the carbon?) essentially de-
| stainlessing it (?). I wonder how much of that would be
| happening at these temperatures.
|
| Definitely not going to experiment with this on our
| 20-year old wedding rings, but it seems like this is very
| much worth keeping in mind for any potential future
| projects! Maybe if I ever help one of my kids make their
| rings for their wedding? :)
|
| Thanks for the idea, and for the link!
| tutipop wrote:
| > I've heard that welding stainless steel gets it too hot
| and removes something (the carbon?) essentially de-
| stainlessing it (?).
|
| I don't know if it's possible, but even if it is, it's
| not the carbon that makes the steel stainless. It's the
| additional chromium, nickel, or molybdenum.
|
| Maybe when the steel melts during the welding process,
| those other metals get separated from the iron.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| For most simple designs, you should forge the ring and solder it
| closed instead of casting. Casting would be more appropriate for
| detailed designs that you don't have time to carve or hammer out.
| ggreer wrote:
| Yeah, hindsight is 20/20. As my blog post mentions at the end,
| I had no trouble forging a gold ring. Though instead of using
| solder, I melted the ends together as I wanted the entire ring
| to remain pure gold.
|
| Had I wanted a faceted hammered look from the start, I probably
| would have skipped the casting step entirely.
| bsder wrote:
| Weren't most of your issues because you didn't use a
| centrifugal caster?
|
| DIY aesthetic is nice, but sometimes there are good reasons
| why a specific tool exists.
| ggreer wrote:
| I wasn't sure if centrifugal casting would solve the issue
| with oxygen bubbles, and since I already had a vacuum pump,
| I figured I'd try vacuum casting. The main issue was that I
| had problems getting a good seal because I made the device
| myself instead of buying a vacuum casting machine. Also I
| could have skipped the issue of inconsistent metal
| temperatures by replacing my torch with an electric melting
| furnace.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| I'm surprised you were able to fuse the gold. In any case,
| you would use a tiny amount of gold solder to make the ring,
| perhaps before finishing the hammering.
|
| Also, pure gold is commonly considered too soft for jewelry.
| It will scratch and ding easily. You should use 22k or lower,
| with the balance being copper and/or silver. You can easily
| buy a great alloy so I wouldn't attempt to make one myself,
| unless the financial savings were amazing.
| ggreer wrote:
| Yeah it took a while to melt the ends together. I think
| maybe six attempts. I should have punched a hole in the
| gold bar, then shaped the ring from there.
|
| I know that pure gold is much softer than alloys, but the
| color is unique and it's not too hard to re-hammer the
| surface to get rid of scratches.
| groby_b wrote:
| Since OP likes symbolism, it's worth keeping in mind that
| wedding rings are never supposed to have a seam - they're
| symbolizing, amongst other things, eternity. Casting's the way
| to go (if that matters to you)
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| A properly soldered ring with the right treatment will not
| have a seam. On the other hand, castings can easily end up
| with imperfections and porosity, especially in the hands of
| an amateur with limited equipment.
| 55555 wrote:
| Properly handmade rings are stronger, I think. And there's no
| seam if you do it properly.
| seszett wrote:
| Yes, it's both easier and gives a better end result (unless you
| have good equipment and technique for casting). That's what we
| did for ours, and we're happy with the result. About 600EUR
| total for two rings including the 6 grammes of gold and the
| tools (and a few silver coins for practicing). Also, we went
| for 21k because it's hard enough and easy to get in gold coins
| (thus, no VAT and very small premium on the price of gold).
|
| I wrote an account (in French) here:
| https://seos.fr/blog/20240426.or.html but it's more for future
| reference for myself and for the friends who knew about it than
| anything else.
| groby_b wrote:
| Nice!
|
| fwiw, people usually don't use a silver/gold alloy not because of
| cost, but because of hardness. But then, I like that for a
| wedding ring, it'll collect a few marks on the way - and that too
| is like a relationship.
| rjsw wrote:
| My childhood dentist made several wedding rings, he had all the
| equipment to cast gold for tooth crowns.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| He also removed crowns that had gold in them? Sounds like
| jewellery is a good dental side hustle!
| filipezf wrote:
| I have a cute somewhat related story. I wanted to make really
| unique rings, so I decided to make them from some random metal
| from the forgotten realms of the periodic table.
|
| I asked for a site that sells many rings of many different
| metals, with no luck. THIS metal, it turns out, is really
| difficult to cast. After many months with the idea shelved, one
| day my girlfriend found some chinese company that managed to do
| them. US$ 2k rings, and ugly as hell... but at least unique!
|
| The girlfriend soon left me, but, well at least I still had the
| rings... until a few weeks ago when I noticed that I lost them
| too. C'est la vie :-)
| ggreer wrote:
| What metal were the rings made of?
|
| When researching for this project, I did look up the densest
| metal possible: Osmium. Osmium has density of 22.59g/cm^3,
| which is 17% greater than gold's 19.28g/cm^3. (For comparison,
| lead is 11.34g/cm^3 and silver is 10.5g/cm^3.) Sadly Osmium
| melts at 5500oF and can form toxic vapors, so making a ring out
| of it would be impractical.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Gold is 19.32, tungsten is 19.28.
| ggreer wrote:
| I just used the numbers from Wikipedia, which says that
| gold is 19.283g/cm3 and tungsten is 19.254g/cm3.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten
| adrian_b wrote:
| Iridium has almost the same density as osmium
| (indistinguishable without precise instruments) and unlike
| osmium or rhenium it is neither toxic nor radioactive (even
| platinum is very slightly radioactive).
|
| So iridium would be the safest among the densest metals for
| contact with human skin.
|
| Unfortunately, not only iridium is very expensive, but it is
| extremely difficult to shape, being much harder and much less
| ductile than platinum (and its melting point is also much
| higher).
|
| Platinum-iridium alloys are much easier to shape than pure
| iridium, but still much more difficult than pure platinum. In
| the second half of the 19th century, when new standard meters
| and kilograms were made for distribution in all countries and
| to replace the original standards made of pure platinum, an
| alloy of platinum with 10% iridium was chosen, as the most
| resistant metal to mechanical and chemical degradation that
| was known at that time but for which it was still possible to
| process it into a given size and shape.
| filipezf wrote:
| Tm. I checked that it seems to be non-toxic, and don't
| corrode as much as the siblings. The issue is that its
| melting and boiling point are very near.
| whartung wrote:
| There's a fascinating video of a fellow trying to make a ring
| out of Purple Gold.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Pcp944sRI&pp=ygUQcHVycGxlI...
|
| No, I hadn't heard of purple gold either.
| linsomniac wrote:
| If you are going to get rings, for the love of humanity consider
| getting moissanite instead of diamond. Diamonds aren't worth what
| you have to pay for them (try re-selling a diamond), and have a
| long history of BS associated with them.
|
| If you are doing it because of the long history of giving
| diamonds, remember that the popularity of giving diamond
| engagement rings is younger than either US presidential
| candidate. :-)
| fortran77 wrote:
| This was an article about wedding bands; solid bands of one
| material without precious stones.
| linsomniac wrote:
| I realize that, but much of the discussion here has mentioned
| engagement rings so I thought I'd chime in.
|
| I ended up getting my wife two engagement rings and one band,
| one was a diamond that was from her grandmother, the other
| was a moissanite stone in a low-snag setting which would be
| easier for her to wear under gloves at work.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| It seems as if diamond engagement rings became fashionable in
| the renaissance, even if it was only something nobility could
| afford.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Diamonds aren't worth what you have to pay for them (try re-
| selling a diamond)
|
| If you buy a complete ring, you're usually getting quite ripped
| off. But if you buy a stone, complete with its certificate, it
| shall be worth what the market says it is worth. Competent
| jewelers will have no problem with you coming with a stone you
| bought or with an old family heirloom stone and put it on the
| ring you want: you'll pay his hours and the material for the
| ring but that's it. And the stone is worth its market price.
|
| Diamonds above a certain size (whether they're natural or
| synthetic) are engraved now. You keep the certificate and
| you'll be able to resell it.
|
| You can buy synthetic diamonds, they're cheaper than natural
| ones. And there's also a market for these.
|
| Note that I'm not saying that the market ain't going down. What
| I'm saying is that you can definitely buy a stone at its market
| price and resell it at its market price. That's how the markets
| do work: be it stocks, gold or diamonds.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| IMO this is quite simple: does the person who you're getting
| the ring for want a diamond? If yes, then get a diamond. If no,
| get whatever she wants. An engagement ring is a gift and the
| most important thing is what the recipient wants, not my (the
| giver's) opinion on whether or not engagement rings should have
| diamonds in them.
| eludwig wrote:
| As others have mentioned, a centrifugal casting machine would
| have really helped here. I took quite a bit of jewelry making in
| college and all the lost wax casting we did was done this way.
| The force of the metal filling the mold at extremely high speeds
| gets rid of most, if not all, of the impurities/inconsistencies.
|
| Wind up the machine, melt the metal in a small crucible, drop the
| pin and duck (lol). I was once sprayed by a small stream of
| molten brass at +/- 1700 degrees (poor mold with thin wall, later
| fixed and recast) and still have a scar 40 years later to prove
| it.
| agg23 wrote:
| I custom designed a ring for my then girlfriend and sent it to
| Shapeways to have a mold 3D printed, then cast in silver. It
| turned out quite well (other than us having sizing issues). You
| can see my progress pictures here:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/6292xd/i_design...
|
| ----
|
| Now, 8 years later, I'm really wishing I had designed my own
| ring. I would prefer to avoid the cliche metals (silver, gold,
| platinum), and I can't wear silver anyway (allergic). I would
| really like to find an interesting or unusual metal
| (scientifically or just in general) that isn't going to cause
| issues due to its hardness if my finger swells (titanium or
| tungsten are very difficult to cut off in those situations).
|
| Does anyone have any material suggestions?
| BobAliceInATree wrote:
| Rhodium?
|
| It's used to plate white-gold to make it extra bright (unplated
| white gold tends to have a yellow tinge).
|
| It would be super expensive though.
|
| edit: on second look, seems it's too brittle
| adrian_b wrote:
| Niobium a.k.a. columbium is very safe for allergies (like
| titanium, its surface is automatically protected by an
| invisible but very resistant oxide layer). It has an
| interesting history, being one of the few metals (except the
| rare-earth metals) that have been discovered only after the
| beginning of the 19th century, in a mineral first found in USA.
|
| However, it is not much softer than titanium or tungsten. Even
| so, it is quite frequently used for rings, piercings or medical
| implants with minimum health risks.
|
| No metal suitable for contact with skin is as soft as silver
| and gold. For any ring made of another metal than these 2 you
| may need to go to a professional to cut it, if the ring cannot
| be taken out even with the help of some lubricant.
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| My wife and I cast our own wedding bands too. She mentioned the
| idea of casting our own rings, and I remembered my friend
| happened to have made his own small foundry -- a concrete lined
| paint can with some pipe and 10$ hair drier as bellows -- a
| couple of years prior.
|
| We bought some sand casting equipment and a thermometer and went
| over to his house. He had only ever used the foundry to melt
| aluminum, so we weren't sure it'd get hot enough to melt gold. We
| stuffed it with anthracite coal from a big bag he managed to get
| from a hardware store a while back, and sure enough, it got
| plenty hot enough. That 10$ hair drier really pulled its weight
| too, surviving hours upon hours of continuous use.
|
| Before we bought any gold though, we did some test casts in
| aluminum. My wife, I, and a couple of friends melted down some
| cans, formed our sand molds with some cheap steel model rings,
| and cast some pretty bad rings. They weren't even rings, really,
| since they didn't even form full circles. But after a few more
| tries, we figured out better places to put air channels, how to
| pour the metal better, etc. and came out with some decent
| aluminum rings. We also cast some other trinkets like some dice
| and a little darth vader figurine.
|
| More confident we'd be able to successfully cast gold rings, we
| ordered some 14k casting grain. When it arrived, we headed back
| to my friends house, cast some more aluminum trinkets to warm up,
| then my wife and I cast each others rings with only one small
| mishap; luckily gold can is easily re-melted. Breaking apart the
| sand molds to reveal the results was a tense moment, but they
| came out great.
|
| We also opted for hammer finishes, and we're both very happy with
| the result. They have some small pockets on the surface, and we
| overestimated how much the rings would shrink, so mine's a little
| too big and I wear it on my middle finger, but we think of the
| defects as reminders we cast them ourselves. The end result
| wasn't the point anyway; if we wanted perfect rings we would have
| just bought some. The point was the experience of making them,
| and it sounds like the author had the same kind of experience, so
| I'm glad for him.
| timzaman wrote:
| If you make a ring as simple like this, just sandcast it. I also
| think the imperfections in these one-off rings are highly
| desirable, and emphasise the fact that it's unique.
| interludead wrote:
| Imperfections as signs of uniqueness is a beautiful perspective
| beacon294 wrote:
| That's nice. I did something similar. By the deadline, I ended up
| just having shapeways cast my STL files. Ring is very nice, even
| if I merely designed it in OpenSCAD.
|
| I did manage several failed castings.
| gertlex wrote:
| I also used shapeways and CAD (Solidworks). Printed a steel one
| first (cheapest metal), then iterated and did a brass one,
| finally a silver one. I got a spare silver one made as well.
|
| Then I did a wrap of unidirectional carbon fiber around the
| ring in a designed-in groove. Wrapped some 1" ID silicone
| tubing around the ring, held in place by a cable tie, and stuck
| it in the oven at 300 for an hour. Carefully trimmed the carbon
| fiber edges with a razor blade for a hour or two.
|
| Ring's still going good after 6 years :D
| beacon294 wrote:
| That's great! They will also print in gold if you ever want
| to upgrade. I had a backup printed recently, after 7 years,
| and it's exactly the same as the original. I was worried
| about process changes or tolerance issues, but had none.
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| I'm saving this under "for later use", "things to do when I grow
| a moustache" and "Ron Swanson / Nick Offerman reenactment" [1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NPKOGqXKLq4
| specproc wrote:
| Great project. Nowhere near as involved, but I've recently gotten
| into designing jewelry. There are some guys in my town who'll run
| up and cast prints, I just need to make the design.
|
| Got me some big husband points one recent anniversary with that.
| 55555 wrote:
| There is no reason to use casting to make a ring that looks like
| the ring in the OP. Pour the metal into an ingot, heat and hammer
| it (like a blacksmith would) into a long bar. Then heat and bend
| it into a circle/ring, an then use flux to solder it into one
| piece which eats its own tail. (Yes I've done this, several
| times.)
| gertlex wrote:
| > Knowing what I know now, I probably could have made these
| rings without casting. I could have heated up the metal,
| hammered it into shape, reheated to undo the work hardening,
| and repeated that process until I had the ring I desired. In
| fact I did so with the extra gold:
|
| From the article. But I understand, you wanted to do your own
| thing (this dismissive comment of yours) for no reason. :)
| 55555 wrote:
| How was it dismissive? I meant it to be instructive, in case
| others want to make a simple ring. It's a surprisingly
| accessible hobby and making a simple ring is easy. It's the
| standard introductory class people with no experience do and
| they leave with a ring of their own making two hours later.
| COGlory wrote:
| My father makes fake teeth, so for my wedding, and also my
| sister's wedding, he cast the rings out of old gold scraps he had
| lying around. It's maybe the one possession I have that I'm
| extremely sentimental about.
| interludead wrote:
| That's incredibly unique. A profound layer of family connection
| and heritage to these symbols of love.
| farceSpherule wrote:
| "this project took me six weekends over three months and cost
| around $3,500"
|
| Your materials cost was $3,500. What is your time worth per hour
| times the number of hours spent?
|
| Then we will have a more accurate estimate of total cost.
| sowbug wrote:
| Be sure to include the time spent building the relationship
| that led to the engagement!
| hnbad wrote:
| Sure, make sure to also include the time spent shopping around
| for wedding rings when calculating the TCO of bought rings for
| comparison.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Unless you were otherwise going to use that time to make money
| (which most people wouldn't be), your time is worth $0/hr.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Binged a bunch of ring repair/modification videos a while back,
| it's fascinating stuff. It'll look horrible for 90% of the
| process and right at then end suddenly change into being amazing.
| zokier wrote:
| > Since the rings are made entirely of noble metals, they'll
| never corrode
|
| Just fyi, silver certainly can corrode, it is not quite as non-
| reactive as platinum group and gold. So don't go dunking your
| nice ring into acids etc, and salt water can be bad too.
| sanitycheck wrote:
| The vacuum is not necessary here, something this simple is
| achievable with sand casting (search for "Delft Clay") and a bit
| of practice. Ensure the sprue is wide enough and air channels are
| plentiful, make sure the metal is as hot as it's possible to get
| it, and pour swiftly in one fluid motion.
|
| The snag is that you need about 3X your desired weight in metal,
| which in gold is... probably more expensive than the vacuum
| casting setup! So maybe the above applies mainly to silver unless
| there's a good use for the rest of the gold.
| ryaan_anthony wrote:
| this is what i did! it cost me less than 100 bucks in supplies
| and just under 2k in various gold (14k-18k) i bought on ebay. i
| mixed in enough 24k to bring it up to 42 grams of 18k. i cast
| two sets of rings (11g + 2g) and had some leftover gold to
| recast into grains to share with our parents and future
| children.
| BobAliceInATree wrote:
| I assume you could just sell the leftover gold for most of what
| you paid for it.
| interludead wrote:
| A wonderful and meaningful idea. The sentimental value of self-
| made wedding rings is immense.
| mandeepj wrote:
| > But I knew that jewelers are not magicians.
|
| No one is! Magicians are just tricksters; they get copied all the
| time.
| benmos wrote:
| Hope it's permissible for me to post this... but if you're
| looking to do this in the UK, these guys are great:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/PtJpTBpkiDBSzFki7?g_st=ic
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-07-09 23:02 UTC)