Making Rings

Another thing I want to make is a stepped arbour to fit in the lathe to rotate very slowly to do detail work around them. I have some Liver of Sulphur which blackens the rings if immersed in hot water mixture for a period of time. Watching people do this in vids, they all seem to then set about the ring with various grades of sandpaper. Idea to highlight the gigh points while leaving the low points black. Giving the ring an antique look. From what I have watched attacking a soft ring with sand paper is not my idea of being delicate. Hence the mandrel in the lathe so that the hi points can be carefully addressed without removing any material from it. Then to polish with to good old Solvol. I have done a lot of polishing work , see pic of a from my Classic Suzuki.

Been messing on the lathe today. Made a complete blooper trying to turn a ring expander down to make a stepped ring holder. The whole thing exploded & wrecked everything. To top it all the cross slide on the carriage went tight to move. Thinking the worst as always I guessed I had bent the cross slide casting. So I stripped the whole thing off, only to find that with the vibration the lock screw had moved inward & made the whole thing tight to move. Phew. A few further pics of my progress with the rings. The 1st one I made was a 2 shilling piece. It was not very good & very wonky. Tonight I attacked it again & made it a bit better. Now it is called a fat tyre.

I am sure a lot of you members are perfectionists. You look at something & say that is not quite right. I have been like that since I was a kid. I guess these days the establishment will have a meaning for the condition. I am sorry ma'hm your son is a nutter. Or has something zymer disease. I am trying really hard to get right.

Before I start with the Silver ones that will be bad if I mess them up. Anyway a few pics of tonight's progress. You will see the black on the coins, this is Liver of sulphur. It is supposed to stain the metal black to give the patina look. ( JA have I spelled this correctly, feel free) It comes off very easy so not really suitable. I am working on a way to stain a permanent colour which will never come of & not discolour the finger. I digress as usual here you go. Enjoy.

A knurring tool only takes a few minutes to make from a bit of scrap steel, a flint wheel from a Bic lighter, and a roller from a small roller bearing. first the wheel needs to be fitted with a bronze/brass bush or it will do it's best to cut the pin. A forked end in the steel body of the tool, with a transverse hole to take the pin. In use use plenty of oil down the sides of the wheel. This tool will knurl most steels normally used, I'v used it on 4140, it does a good job on aluminium and brass. Must get a photo with better contrast.

Ian S C

Ian S C . Thanks for the picture. Could I make the tool from square section brass. I say this because those pins on the flint are very small & I would not be able to make bushes so small. Also what or where is the roller, from a roller bearing.

I have taken a few lighters apart & all those have the pins fixed. How would I get the thing assembled without the fork being bolted together.

Steve.

The pin came from a bearing from the bearing cup in a universal joint, size about 3/32" dia.,x 0.09652", the bronze bearing, a bit of brazing rod. To make The fork, I drilled a hole vertically just short of the width of the wheel, then I cut the slot by hack saw. Turned the piece 90* and drilled the hole for the pin. The slot was opened with a file to take the width of the bush, about 0.010" greater than the wheel. The wheel should protrude about 1 mm past the end of the fork. It would be possible to make the body of the tool in one central, thickness of wheel plus clearance for the wheel, then two cheeks either screwed or riveted. The holes for the pin should be lightly centre punched around the edge so the pin won't fall out. The idea was taken fromStan Bray's Introducing The LATHE. It's getting past my bed time, so good night from me. Ian S C

Ah now I understand. The wheels that i have looked at so far have the pins fixed in. So I need to find one with a loose pin. Many thanks.

Steve.

Missed this bit, yes you could make the body of the tool from brass, steel is a bit more robust, and the tool will last for years, I'v got some spare flint wheels threaded on a saftey pin I'll never need them. Ian S C

I am not desperate at the moment so will look around. If I get stuck you may get a P.M. Thanks.

Steve.

Thanks to a forum member's suggestion, I made a miniature knurling tool from a flint.I took it from a old Zippo style lighter. Using a piece of solid alloy bar so I can either hold it or fit it to the tool post. Also made a mandrel for holding in the lathe chuck. Some pic of some more rings that I have made for someone. The blue one was today. Just messing with some alloy. Too fat but turned out ok. Need to get some Titanium, as they say the colour run is brilliant .

Amazing what you can do with some scrap ally bar, some party glitter & super glue.

Steve

You can buy the ring blanks in titanium

Thanks for that.

Steve.

Thanks to Derek Lane. I purchased these items & some more too. This is a Titanium ring blank which screws apart. Not going to try & make one but it is very well made. The 2nd item is a piece of Black Palm wood which I am going to try & cut & fit onto the blank. From reading it seems Palm wood is very hard to work with because it is very flaky. Cutting on a lathe can have dire consequences. Onward hopefully.

Steve.

For the last 2 days I have been using the Myford to make a coin punch. I saw one for sale in the USA. Jason's works I think. It was £144 & looks the business. But £144 & probably some duty & delivery. So I bought some 2" BSP fittings , which consisted of a coupling or known as a socket. Also 2- 2" Blanking plugs. They are pressure test plugs for commissioning systems & are made from solid 316. I used to buy a lot of fittings from a company in Normanton when I had my company, so went to see them. I got a good discount & came away with the parts I thought I needed.

I have machined one plug with an internal taper & a 9 1/6" reamed hole to accept the punch square on to centre.

The other plug I have machined to accept the die for the punch. Unfortunately there were 2 sizes of die, so I had to machine 2 recesses.

After machining 12mm from the socket , both parts meet in the centre. Finished it at 10;30p.m I gave it a try, my only worry was that I am an amateur at lathe work & was worried that the through holes might not be in line. I guess line boring is the answer to that one. But I did them separately . I made each part as a separate project, so not to confuse the getting very old Grey matter.

Meaning if I pressed the punch on my 12 ton press & they were not in line it was, back to the drawing board.

I spent ages measuring & then re-measuring, (tips from guys on here). Ended up junking the Digital (CALIPERS) & using the old M&W micrometer's. A lot of sitting down & talking to myself to get a second opinion. You must have all done it. The outcome was a eureka, Perfect. The problems i was having with not being able to punch the coins dead centre meant, When pressing through a tapered die the coin would canter over & stretch all wrong. Then spending an age annealing & compressing & re stretching. It is not complete because so far I can punch old 2 shillings as pic, half crowns, Larger Morgan dollars & commemorative British Silver coins. Smaller coins will not fit so some more thinking needed. Forgot to say. Will probably turn down the hex & knurl. When a get a Knurling tool. Only have the little flint one I made. 

Steve.

Edited By Steviegtr on 15/02/2020 00:08:40

I have had a go at some rings made from stainless bar & inlaid with Opal with a fluorescent base. Not turned out too bad.

Steve.

Posted by Jim Young 2 on 18/03/2020 19:44:47:

Steve

Would you be willing to expand on your methods for the rings and perhaps indicate a source for the ring blanks.

Your results are spectacular and encourage experimentation!.

OK so where do I start.

Originally I was just making coin rings, which has been quite successful, but to make a good job without spending an age beating a coin to death to get the shape, you would need.

A ring stretcher, a set of dies to create the inversion. a decent hole punch. See the one I have recently made, because I was having difficulty punching dead centre. Without that it is a waste of time going any further. A blow lamp & many other items like all grades of wet & dry paper. Ring mandrels ( I have made my own on the lathe ). To make the ones with the inlay, which have turned out great so far. You could either buy the ring blanks, I will put a link at the end for all the things you would need. The ring that is glowing green, I made entirely. A lot cheaper to turn the body yourself & of course you can then experiment on thickness, width & depth + width of the centre groove.

The blue ring is from a bought ring blank. They do lots of shapes & every finger size. Some plain & some with various width grooves. The blue ring is a bought blank. I will not be buying any more blanks because they are easy to make yourself, if you have a lathe.

The method. The wood ring I have already mentioned, but I have recently bought a large amount of exotic wood 0.6mm veneer's To which you cut a strip with a very sharp blade to the width of the groove in the ring. Then leave in hot water for 2 mins to soften. Once soft remove & wrap round anything roughly the size of ring you are making. Secure with some tape & leave overnight to fully dry.

Then carefully remove the tape & rub each end of the veneer on some 600 paper to taper the ends. Super glue the beginning of the wood to the ring & works it round the ring. Dabbing drops of super glue as you go. There are a lot of types of CA or super glue. I have the gel type, the medium viscosity & some that is like water. The water one for the wood veneer. Once at least one turn is done , covering all the groove to satisfaction then glue the end. Once this is fully set you can start to sand the diameter. If it is below the groove then simply drip all around the ring with med or thick super glue.

This is where the lathe is very handy especially if you can run at very slow speeds. If no lathe then a battery drill in the vice or whatever you can sum up. The point is you must keep the ring turning very slowly or the super glue will just end up as a big blob in one place.

Rubbing down while rotating takes an age. Start with 220 if it is bad or a higher if it is reasonably smooth. To give an idea , I start with 220 to 400. Then up to 600, 800. 1200, 2000, finally 2500 with water. Then it is on with the Dremel & polish. I have tried many types of polish but always come back to the Solvol autosol metal polish. Those rings above took around 4 hours each just to rub down & polish. The problem can be that when you rub the CA glue down, there are sometimes little air bubbles. These have to be rectified & then filled with more glue. Takes forever waiting for glue to go off. I have activator but it acts weird. It kind of boils the glue as it sends it off. Tried light dusting & heavy coats to no avail. So I leave for a good few hours once glued. On a few occasions I have not waited long enough & started to work on the ring just to ruin it. Start again.

The opal rings were something I just experimented with. The limit with these is your own imagination & being able to get the supplies required. For example if you do not have sums of money to chuck at them, go back up this page to the green & the blue rings, I mean the 2 above that block of wood. Have a stab at what they cost to make. Literaly nothing. How so. Well the infil is common card glitter, I have tubes of every colour. About £1 a tube if that. A tube would make probably 100 rings. The ring itself is just some aluminium round bar I had. Then a bit of super glue.

On the other hand these just above cost a bit more. The infill is proper crushed opal. A little packet to do 1 or 2 rings if you are lucky is about £6 to £7 a bag. 1gram. The blue ring Has the opal , but also had to buy the blank. Cost total about £13. Anyway I hope this has helped you & any further info just ask. I am still making dies for the pressing of coins with an aim of not damaging any of the print inside & out. Pics of what I have made. About 10 so far have gone. Thought I might have covered the cost by now but I have too many friends , that want stuff for nowt. Haha Never mind. OK so some pics & a link to buying materials for you. Regards. Steve.

Ring supplies

I've not made rings but it's common enough with woodwork to fill splits and checks with a mix of epoxy and filings or glitter. I bought some of the loose bags of cheap glitter from ebay sold for nail craft - you get a lot for very little and way cheaper than things like brass filings (unless you have your own)

pgk

Yes agree there are lots of alternatives. As said anything. The wood dust from the Palm wood ring I saved. Used some in one of those rings above. Forgot to say the tapered one is a Morgan silver Dollar that I started. Stopped until I made the correct tapered die & acetal pusher. Which I now have finished so will be finishing that one soon. Also those last 2 rings have illuminous dust in the route of the groove.

Steve.

Steve

Thanks for the above, lots to think about and experiment with.

I will come back with questions as they occur !

Regards and stay safe!

Jim

Don't be fooled into THINKING you can buy Yorkshire Grit. Many move into the county but we NEVER naturalize them.

Regards Ian.