The simplest silver jewellery to make is a simple silver band of the sort you can make on our stacking ring workshops. I'll create a short series of posts showing you how to make your own ring using a simple set of tools. In this 1st post, I'll take you through the most basic set of tools amd materials you'll need to make your 1st ring. Future posts will take you step by step through making your ring.
Alternatively, if you live in the Warrington Area, you can book on to one of our beginner workshops here... https://www.benandcocoa.com/workshops
Essential Tools
To cut your wire - flush cutters, for thin wire (up to about 1.5mm thick ( 16/17 Ga)). These cutters will give you a clean cut that you will be able to get away without needing additional tools to file your joint. For example
To Measure Your Wire - Metal rule. A standard 15 or 30mm metal rule
To measure your finger - Ring Sizers
To Measure the ring you make - Sizing Mandrel (the one in the link also includes a set of finger sizers as above)
To shape your wire a ring mandrel or Triblet to hammer your ring round and
A rawhide hammer, A small nylon hammer could also be used, metal hammers are not recommended as they are likely to alter the profile of your silver.
To solder your ring a small butane torch, a set of tweezers and a heat proof soldering block
You will also need a bowl for water and one for "pickle" Heat prof is recommended but the pickle one should not be metal.
Consumables
Some silver wire - You will need between 50mm to 75mm for most ring sizes. I suggest starting with 1.5mm thick
Some Solder paste - start with Hard (Solder wire or sheet can also be used but will additionally require flux
Some Pickle - Citrix acid can also be used but may take longer to work - this removes flux and fire scale from your ring
Some buffing sticks to clean and polish your ring
A polishing cloth for the final shine
I've tried to keep this list to the cheapest options to give you the lowest cost to have a go, as you progress, there will be other tools such as saws, pendant motors and more that will help you make bigger and more complex pieces and improve the quality of your finish.
Coming soon, I'll add to this series of posts taking you step by step to create your first ring. or you can watch me make a simple rope ring in this video https://youtu.be/FYiCklBtpgM
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