Coin Ring Tutorial
First, get yourself a coin. Pre-1964 US coins (except nickels and pennies of course) are 90% silver which isn't much less than sterling at 92.5%
For this ring, I used a 1954 Franklin Half Dollar.
For a smaller womens size ring I would suggest a quarter, and for a really small finger I would suggest using a dime maybe. I have small fingers and will be trying both later. I'll add information to this tutorial as I discover it.
If you don't already have the tools, you can get everything you need from RioGrande
Now on to the tutorial...
First, here's a picture of my messy work desk.
Now, take your coin and mark a circle in the center of it.
For this ring, I marked a size 8, which resulted in a size 14 ring. You're going to have to figure out the size you'll need for the size of the finished ring you want. I'm sure there's some mathematical equation that can be used, but I'm just using trial and error here. You might want to practice on some junk coins until you figure it out.
I wanted a size 12 1/2 and a starting size of 8 was too big. So, take what you will from that. It's all I can give you to go on at this time.
Once you get your circle marked, drill a small hole on the inside edge of the circle as shown in the picture. The hole is so that you can insert the saw blade for cutting
Take your jewelers saw and thread one end of the blade into the hole and then re-attach it to your saw frame. Cut out the circle.
Technically, you could just get a large drill bit and drill out your hole. But that's wasteful. I can think of a few things I could do with the leftover center.
Once I had the center cut out, I used my half round file and filed the cut edge just a little bit. It's probably not necessary.
Then I dropped the coin in the pickle to clean it off a bit before heating it up.
You're going to need to anneal the coin. Once your coin is clean, flux it and heat it up with your torch. Heat it up just until it gets glowing red. Be careful that you don't overheat it, or you will end up with something like this...
A cool little technique to be filed away for later use... but not what we want here.
Annealing the metal makes it softer and more pliable, which in turn, makes it easier to bend. Not annealing the coin first will not only make it extremely difficult to bend, but could also end up with the metal cracking instead of bending. So don't skip this part.
As soon as the glow is gone, quench the coin in water and then drop it in the pickle again to clean it.
Now you're ready to begin bending it into a ring. I decided to give it a start by putting it in my doming block and tapping it into a bit of a curve, but it's not necessary to do this so if you don't have a doming block, don't worry about it.
Slide your coin onto your ring mandrel and start tapping it and folding it over, making sure the side you want to show on your finished ring is facing up. Tap around the coin evenly as you work.
Here's a nice action shot. And then a shot of what you want your ring to start looking like.
You're going to need to bend the uncut side down, and also stretch the cut side by hammering it on the larger side of the mandrel.
As you work, you're going to notice that the metal starts getting hard again. This is called work hardening. When I felt the metal getting stiff, I annealed it again. I annealed mine several times during the process to keep it nice and malleable.
Once you get the ring how you want it, you're going to want to file the cut edge some more so it's nice and smooth and even. Then just polish it up and you're finished. If you want to antique it, you can use liver of sulpher, or silver black, which is what I used for this ring.
This ring could have been worked a bit more, but once I saw that it wasn't going to be the right size I kind of gave up on it.
The side of the ring that has the original serrated edge is going to be thicker than the cut edge. If you don't like that, you could lay the original edge on a soft piece of wood, or a thick piece of leather on your anvil and gently hammer the cut edge to form somewhat of a rim to match the thickness of the uncut edge. I haven't tried that, but I'm going to try it on the next coin ring I make.
And there you have it. Now go make a ring!
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