This tutorial shows how to make a sterling silver ring with a round fitting.  You can add a semi-precious stone, polymer clay design or fill it with resin. I made a design with some polymer clay for mine. I liked the orange and black with the silver.

Materials:

• Silver wire (I used d-shaped medium hard for the ring)
• Silver sheet
• Bezel wire
• Silver solder (hard and medium hard)*

*The ring base gets soldered twice so you need the different solder hardness to ensure that the first join does not come apart.

Tools and equipment

• Soldering block
• Ring sizer
• Ring mandrel
• Saw
• Sand paper
• Files (for silver use)
• Propane/ butane torch
• Pickle and pickle pot
• Rinse bath
• Copper tongs
• Metal cutters
• Silver flux
• Bench vice

Safety information

Be careful working with silver means that you work with hazardous chemicals and hot materials. Please follow general safety precautions while working with silver, read the MSDS for each chemical and if you have not done so yet, read an article dealing with general safety before doing this tutorial.
Always make sure that your work area is clear and that you wear protective goggles, shoes etc, tie long hair back, and don’t wear loose fitting clothes.

Preparation
 

Measure the size of the finger you want to make the ring for. Cut the correct size for the ring out of the d-shaped wire. If you have not done so yet, anneal your metal. That basically means that you heat it up uniformly to make it workable. Wiktionary defines it as ‘annealing - In metallurgy, the process of heating solid metal to high temperatures and cooling it slowly so that its particles arrange into a defined lattice’.

Step 1: Making the silver ring
 

Measure the length of bezel wire you require to make the fitting. Form the bezel around a mandrel. Make sure the edges meet up properly, file or trim as necessary to ensure that it does [image 1a]. Put some flux on the join and solder it together. Remember, solder does not flow over gaps, so you have to be sure that the edges meet properly. Bezel wire is very thin, so take care that it does not melt while you solder it.

Plunge the soldered piece into the water container to cool it off. Make sure it is cooled down before you pick it up to fit it around the mandrel again.

Take the silver sheet and mark the size that you want the fitting for the ring to be. I used a circle. Cut a square around the marked area. (Make sure the bezel you just made fits in neatly before sawing it.)

Put the square sheet that you cut out on your soldering block and cover it with flux. Put the soldered bezel on top of the sheet and place silver solder on the inside of the bezel ring. See image 1b. Use hard solder for this join, because we are going to solder the metal for the ring to this bit later.

Make sure that the bezel sits on the sheet without any gaps. Start soldering with gentle movements over the metal sheet to heat it up gradually. The solder will flow and when it flashes it will be joined properly. Use your jeweller’s tongs to put it in the cold water to cool it down. I am sorry that I am carrying on about cooling it off the whole time, but hot silver gives a nasty burn and I don’t want you to forget.  Check the bezel to ensure that there aren’t any gaps. You should now have a bezel on top of the square piece. Image 1c.

The next step is to saw away the excess metal around your bezel. Pop it into your bench vice to hold it while sawing. Try to keep as close to the edge of the bezel as possible, you can saw uneven bits off later or file it away, but it takes less time if you do this step carefully. Image 1d. As you’ll see in the photo, I slipped when I sawed it the first time and had to correct it.

The bezel is basically done now. Next step is to attach the d-shaped wire to form the ring. Form the d-shaped wire around your ring mandrel to the correct size. Use your rawhide mallet to help it if you need to. Turn the bezel around and put the ring on top to see how it fits, mark the edge where you want the ring to connect to the bezel [image 1e] and saw it flat. File the edge flat. 

The next step can be a bit tricky if you have shaky hands. But just take it easy and it will be fine. Cover the back with flux and position the ring on top of it. Make sure that it is centred properly. Cut some silver solder (use a softer solder than you did for the previous join – i.e. solder with a lower melting point). Put the pieces of solder where you want the join to be. Use your torch to heat the bezel. Use a circular motion around the piece to heat it evenly. The solder will flash when the correct temperature is reached. If the join looks OK, put it in the cold water to cool off, double check that the join was successful. Image 1f. The base for the ring is done. Image 1g. You can pop it in your pickle pot with your copper tongs. Be careful!

Take out the ring when it looks clean. Right that is the main step of the design done.
 

Step 2: Make the polymer clay cabochon

Next step is to add the stone you want to set. I used a polymer clay piece for this ring.

Roll out the clay in the colour of your choice. Mark the correct size of the bevel on the rolled out sheet and cut out with a cookie cutter or your scalpel. (You could use the ring to do this, but sometimes the clay gets stuck and you have problems getting it out again.)  Image 2a.

Draw a little design on the piece of clay. I used various metal cookie cutters and needle tools to imprint the shapes. Bake the piece.

After you got it out of the oven paint the top with dark acrylic paint and let it dry. Image 2b. Use a kitchen towel or something similar to wipe off the paint from the design so that the imprinted bits are coloured and the rest is the colour of your clay. Image 2c. Varnish the piece.

Put a piece of floss over the bevel before you put the polymer clay in (this will help you get it out again). If you are happy with the fit and design pop it out and put some strong glue in the ring and put the polymer clay piece back in. Wait for it to dry. If you like, you can pour some resin on top of the design to protect it. I used varnish to give it a few more coats. Image 2d.