This week I'm working on a very special commission. I was asked to inlay a gold wedding ring into a wooden ring by a customer! I gladly accepted the challenge and thought I'd share the whole process of how I made this unique and beautiful wooden ring.

The inside of the ring was made with Santos Rosewood with Grey Birdseye Maple forming the outside. The central inlay is a gold wedding band and the other inlays are Dinosaur bone and Tektite Meteorite.

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https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ZebranoWoodCraft

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Now on with the video ...

Step 2: Bending the Wood

I began by making the inside lining of the ring which in this case was Santos Rosewood.

I cut a 15mm slice of rosewood veneer and sanded down one end of the piece so it was paper thin. Then I soaked it in cold water for about 30 minutes.

With the wood soaked I secured it around a wide socket using a bit of tape and waited for it to dry.

I peeled the tape off and was left with a beautiful wooden swirl to make the inside of the ring!

Step 3: Making the Rosewood Liner

Next I took a socket that was roughly a ring Size 11 and wrapped the wood around it to form 1 layer.

I cut away the excess wood with a scissors then sanded the edge so I could begin gluing my first layer of wood.

To glue up I used a cocktail stick and some medium thickness super glue, just applying a small amount and pressing the overlapping flappy bit down until it was stuck.

After sanding the seam with a bit of 240 grit I had the inside layer of my ring sorted.

Step 4: Grey Maple Burger

Before

undertaking this project I had the gold ring resized by a jeweller to fit perfectly over the sheath of wood so the next stage was to make the wood portions of the outside.

I used the same “bent wood method” as before to cut and prepare two 5mm pieces of Grey Maple.

In technical terms what I did next was wrap the smaller bits around the bigger bit.

I used the outside of the Rosewood to make two smaller bent wood rings with the grey maple – except the two smaller rings were just 2 layers thick.

I sanded the edges of the Grey Maple rings flat and then shaped them so they were tapered – this way the outside pieces all squished together nicely like a burger.

Step 5: Glue Up & Taper

With the inner liner is made, and the two grey maple rings and gold band made to fit around it it was time to glue them all together.

The glue up was nice and easy – I just applied a bit of glue in the gaps and then squished all the bits together like a burger!

With the glue up complete I sanded the ring to it's final tapered shape.

Step 6: Cutting Inlay Channels

The next thing to do was to cut out two additional inlay channels.

I started with my trusty marking gauge, marking an inlay band on each side as a guide and then carved out the channels with a triangle file.

Step 7: Inlays for Days

When the channels were deep enough I began filling them with my inlay materials.

I applied a small amount of superglue into the groove with a cocktail stick and then quickly dunked the ring into my crushed up material. I repeated this process several times until the grooves were completely filled.

For this ring I used Dinosaur Bone and Tektite meteorite.

When both of the inlays were completely filled I cleaned them up by scraping away unwanted excess with a craft knife and then sanded the rest down flush with a few grits of sandpaper.

Step 8: C.A Finish

Here's the secret sauce and the part of the project where everything could go wrong! To finish the ring I used a Superglue finish.

I applied multiple layers of medium thickness superglue to the ring, covering every surface in a thick coating. In between coats I used activator spray to stop the glue from blooming, bubbling or going weird.

Step 9: Polishing

When the glue was completely cured I mounted the ring in some pin jaws on my lathe and polished out the inside and edges of the ring by using sandpaper and micromesh.

To polish the outside I mounted the ring on a spindle and used the same technique, gradually working from a 400 grit to 12,000 grit until the surface was even and shiny.