Volcano Arts : The Muse : A Ring of Silver

A selection of sterling patterned wires	Materials Patterned Sterling Silver Wire Hard Silver Solder Flux for Silver Soldering 400 Grit Polishing Paper 400 Grit Sandpaper Polishing Tools (your preference) Scratch Paper Pickle Solution Polishing Compound	Tools: Soldering Torch (oxy/propane and air/acetylene are two popular choices) Fireproof Surface Flatnose Pliers Flush Cutters Flatnose Pliers with Nylon Jaws 3rd Hand Magnification (such as an OptiVisor) Soldering Pick (titanium) Pickle Pot Full of Hot Pickle Copper or Plastic Tongs Dish of Water for Quenching Flat Hand File Ring Clamp (hand vise) Ring Mandrel Rawhide Mallet Bench Pin Charcoal Block Flex Shaft (optional)
Technique Start by choosing a sterling silver patterned wire, available from jewelry supply houses. For your first silver ring, start with wire that is a fairly light gauge and not very wide so that it’s easy to manipulate. Wider and heavier gauge wires are significantly harder to work with and require additional annealing and filing. They should be saved for after you have more experience.
Patterned wire and paper size template	Cut a piece of scratch paper to roughly the width of your wire and about 3” long. Wrap the paper around your finger and mark the spot at which the 2 ends of the paper overlap. Cut the paper to the length of the mark, and then use the paper as a guide to cut a piece of wire. Cut the wire using good quality flush cutters. As you can make a ring bigger after soldering by stretching it on a mandrel, I’d rather have it too small than too big. The only way to make a ring smaller is to cut a section out and re-solder it. Knowing this, I try to err to the small side while making a ring.
Anneal the silver by placing the strip so that it’s standing up on a fireproof surface and it’s leaning against a charcoal block (to radiate the heat back toward the silver). Light your torch and hold it so that the silver is just beyond the bright blue cone inside the flame. Steadily move the flame so that you don’t overheat one section of the silver. Heat the entire piece to a dull glowing red. Metal is annealed when it’s 2/3 its melting point. It’s useful to remember that when you are wondering if you got the silver hot enough. Quench the silver strip in water to cool.		Annealing the wire to make it more malleable
File and sand the ends of the wire so that they are perfectly smooth and meet up evenly.
Soldering the seam with a torch and a titanium pick	Form the silver strip into an oval shape with the 2 sides of the seam touching. The joint should be in the center of one of the long sides of the oval.
Line up both sides of the butt joint perfectly and adjust with a flat file so that edges touch along 100% of joint. The finished quality of your ring will depend on this step as much as any other. Take your time and make sure that you can’t see any light between the two ends of the metal. Use a pair of flatnose pliers to carefully true up the point at which the two ends of silver meet. This little step flattens everything up and makes everything sort of “seat.” If you have a set of those soft jawed flatnose pliers use those. If you don’t own a pair, simply wrap masking tape around the jaws of a pair of flatnose pliers. You don’t want to leave tool marks on the silver. At your soldering station, place the ring in a 3^rd hand tool so that the seam is at the bottom. Flux the joint, on the top and on the bottom of the seam. Lay a tiny chip (about 1/16” of an inch square) of hard solder on the inside of the ring’s seam.
Heat the ring so that entire piece comes to temperature at the same time. While heating, have a heatproof soldering pick in your hand and ready for action. I like to hold my torch in my left (passive) hand and my soldering pick in my right (dominant) hand. Even though you are working with and concentrating on your torch, the pick needs to be ready if the solder needs a little help with direction or flow. Pickle and rinse the ring. Place the ring on a steel ring mandrel and shape it using a rawhide mallet.		Reshaping the ring to round
Smoothing the inside of the ring with a flex shaft machine and polishing papers	On a piece of 400 grit sandpaper that’s been taped to something very flat (a tabletop, piece of acrylic, etc.), sand the edges of the ring so that they are smooth and flat. Pay particular attention to the seam area. To clean up, smooth and shape the inside of your ring, place the ring in the ring clamp and use either 400 grit polishing paper on a split mandrel on your flex shaft or a piece of 400 grit sandpaper wrapped around a round dowel. When you are done polishing up the inside of the ring, the solder seam should be invisible. If not, keep working on it. If you really made a mess with your solder, you may need to use coarser sandpaper or a 1/2 round file. I like to round the inside edges a little so that the ring doesn’t feel sharp when wearing it.
Bring the silver to a high polish using a flex shaft tool or polishing lathe and a felt wheel charged with polishing compound. Wash the ring with hot soapy water to remove the remaining polishing compound and wear your ring with pride!		Buffing the outside of the ring with a felt wheel and polishing compound
The finished, oxidized ring	Issue # 18 Christine Cox was a regular contributor to ARTitude Zine. This article originally appeared there and is reprinted here with permission. Unfortunately ARTitude is no longer published.

Christine Cox teaches metalsmithing and bookbinding classes in our Studio in Volcano, CA.