3 Simple Ways to
Share What You Make

With Instructables you can share what you make with the world — and tap into an ever-growing community of creative experts.

PhotosPhotos

Share one or more photos of a project, recipe, or whatever you've made, quickly and easily.

Get Started

Learn more & Get Tips

Step by StepStep-By-Step

Share your step-by-step photos with text instructions of what you made so others can do it too!

Get Started

Learn more & Get Tips

VideoVideo

Share your how-to video. You'll need your embed code from a video site such as YouTube.

Get Started

Learn more & Get Tips

Favorite

Part 1 of 2: How to make a Basic Ring

video Part 1 of 2: How to make a Basic Ring

Demonstrating how I make my Wee Rings start-to-finish (minus some boring polishing) as seen on http://metalsmitten.etsy.com ... Soldering, ring forming, stone setting, tube setting, filing, all the good stuff in one wee package.

11 comments

Dec 16, 2011. 7:20 AMbespectacled says:

What gauge wire? What hardness? Was it round or half-round?

May 30, 2011. 9:14 PMamiles2 says:

what gauge of wire did you use? also was it half hard?

Feb 16, 2011. 8:57 AM

Mrballeng says:

Hoover and Strong does not sell to the public. Any sugestions on where the average Joe can buy the stuff you use?

Feb 24, 2011. 7:47 AMBully_4_You says:

G&S gold in Michigan sells to the public. If they don't have the type of stock you want check Rio Grande, Thunderbird or Silver Supply. You can google these suppliers for their websites. Have fun!

Feb 16, 2011. 9:09 AMmetalsmitten (author) says:

there are a number of places... Rio Grande, Thunderbird supply, Fire Mountain gems... there are others but I've never used anyone else so I'm not the best to ask :D

Dec 12, 2010. 10:35 AMneffk says:

heating and quenching produces hardened metal. You may be annealing the metal after all, but it's probably due to the very small mass of the wire. I'm guessing it mostly cools in a few seconds and your "quench" occurs only cools the metal from a few hundred degrees (low temp for metal) to room temp.

Anyway, what kind of metal are you using?

Dec 12, 2010. 11:41 AMmetalsmitten (author) says:

heating and quenching produces hardened steel. heating (correctly) and quenching produces annealed silver ;) and i'm using silver. i have worked with both; they are very different.

Jul 1, 2010. 5:03 PMtimothy73 says:

wow this is amazing work! i am very interested in doing one myself.. how do you get ahold of the stones if you dont mind me asking? & what material are you using for the ring itself? thanks!!

Jun 25, 2010. 6:16 PMmrmath says:

Have to ask. What are the wrist tats?

Jun 25, 2010. 6:23 PMmrmath says:

And, start to finish, how long does it take to do this?

Jun 26, 2010. 10:58 AMmetalsmitten (author) says:

Haha, my wrist tattoos are golden-ratio rectangles. :) I'm a pretty big dork, so I like the symbolism of them and how you see the ratio represented all the time in art and nature. From start to finish the rings usually take me about an hour to make, not counting when they're in the tumbler. I edited most of the sanding and polishing out of the video (which is the boring, labor-intensive stuff).