Making the Wedding Rings

You may remember way back when I posted about my plans to make our wedding bands (which is also one of my favorite posts I've ever written for this blog).

Well, it happened, with the help of my friend Emily (who is the reason I found our photographer, as I mentioned in another previous post). John had to leave for marching band camp that day and was unable to be there with us, so I made sure to take plenty of pictures. And now, I'm really glad I did, because I love being reminded of the process. And what a process it was; I almost didn't have a band for John at all because we couldn't figure out why the sterling was cracking apart. Then, on my ring, the solder didn't seem to want to take and we kept having to heat and reheat the ring under the torch (which was nerve-wracking because gold is softer and I was scared I would melt it and ruin it!).

All in all, it was a long day of work (over 6 hours), but I was so proud to be able to do this myself as a tribute to my grandmother, who made my parents' rings and whose tools and silver I used to make our rings. Emily was amazing, stepping in when I asked for help and really making sure I left with rings that I was completely in love with. 

Here's a small tour of the process:

All the raw materials laid out on a vintage jewelry box that I keep my
grandmother's silver tools in (files, jewelry saw, hammers, solder, etc).

The three large sterling pieces were for John's ring, the two small 14k
 white gold pieces for my ring(s), and the postage-stamp sized piece
of 18k white gold solder that I had to special-order for my rings.

The jewelry saw, all beeswaxed up and ready to go, and through
the blade, the measurements for our rings. Mine was about 2.2"
and John's only took 2.6"

Gotta love the singed bit all around the spot where I annealed John's ring.

Before I made any of the other rings, I made a practice ring with some
spare sterling silver. It ended up being a size 5, which fits right on
my pinky finger.

The practice ring without any sanding (hence the obvious seam).
I liked the matte look of it without any polishing.

After annealing, I stamped the three blanks for John's rings.

The first blank shattered like peanut brittle after annealing it. Emily was
stunned; she said she had never seen that happen before. The second
ring formed a small crack in a later step. After calling a few friends
 for advice (and trying to fill the cracks with solder, which was futile),
we let the third ring air-cool instead of quenching it.
It was the little ring that could.

So I practiced stamping on the broken ring. I knew I wanted to stamp it
with a quote from Walt Whitman's Song of the Open Road (which
we used in our ceremony), but I couldn't decide between three
quotes. The quote ended up choosing me, because a second ring
cracked after this point.

The ring that didn't break apart. Hooray!

Emily got a great shot of me soldering what would become John's ring.

You can see the seam so clearly in this shot. It was pretty much invisible
by the time I was done with it!

Holding up my engagement ring in the light right before I formed
the white gold to fit around it. It had such a nice sparkle I
decided to take a picture.

After bending my ring around my engagement ring, we had to keep
hammering it around the ring sizer to make sure it didn't completely
lose its shape.

You can see all the scratches and marks from the pliers and the hammer.
That's the fun part of working with gold; it's so soft it shows everything,
so I was advised to keep a fairly light touch with it.

It almost looks like a different metal when you hold it up against my
finished engagement ring, doesn't it? But don't worry; after
many many hours of filing and sanding and buffing,
it looked like a perfect match.

Of all the DIY projects for the wedding, this one was the most intimidating and the most satisfying. I can't believe I made our wedding bands with my nascent metal smithing skills. I am so proud of this accomplishment but also so glad I didn't give in and buy bands out of fear. What an incredible experience, and such a meaningful tribute to my family history.