Making Rings

Something I had a go at recently. The old 2 shillings & half crowns are a popular ring to use. But are 50%Nickel 50% Zinc. Pre 1920 british silver coins had .925 sterling silver content. So much better to use but expensive to buy. Just bought some Morgan 1881 Silver Dollars to do. They are 90% Silver. I wore the half crown ring for a few days & it did make my fingers go a bit black. Ones made of none precious metal need either a coat of clear laquer of which I have gallons of 2 pack from doing my write off cars & bikes rebuilds. Or maybe some way of anodising. Got stacks of coins to go at. There was an issue of, sort of destroying coins but seems like no one gets bothered by it. Obviously the coins I am practicing on are no longer tender. There was some bylaw in the states saying that you cannot alter currency that will make it worth more than the ring value. The half crown shape is what is termed the fat tyre. Popular in the states where they use a large ring. Smaller coins not so easy as you have to stretch the metal & lot & the writing is much harder to read. That half crown was annealed 6 times during the process. They work harden very quick once you start to reform them.

Edited By Steviegtr on 20/01/2020 22:47:01

Forgot to say I am looking for a parallel Knurl for the lathe to recreate the edge of the coin. It will have to be very fine though & only a single wheel one. If anyone knows of a supplier. All the ones I have seen are much too coarse. Also need to make some stepped arbours so I can install in the chuck of the lathe to work on the outside of the rings without damaging them.

Steve.

There are quite a few .999 silver 1 ounce coin designs issued by the royal mint which could make nice rings. Also the silver £20 coin issued for the queen's 90th birthday with a crown and 9 roses in a circle really suits being made into a ring.

If you want matched reeding on the edges then you'll probably have to make your own knurl to match, or remove the reeded edge and re-do it with a bought knurl. A shop made knurl wouldn't need to be all that hard if only used for forming silver.

Thanks for that info. Some more I will be doing. I have a Krugerand coming which is pure.

The £5 coin I am going to try & stretch it so that most of the detail is kept. Obviously some of the centre will be lost. The art is in the annealing keeping the metal very soft so it can be stretched & shrunk. My friends who have seen some of my rings cannot get there head round how they are made.

Hi Steve - fascinating post. I guess a lot of us would like to know how these rings are made.

Bob

Hi Steve you can use the wheel from a plastic lighter with a flint the wheel is very hard and its easy to make a holder to make a knurling tool.

David

How do you guys do it, the idea's you come up with, a lighter sparker. Just looked & it does look pretty much the pitch I would need. Thanks you David.

Steve.

I believe the OP meant copper, not zinc in the coins. The old threepenny bits may have had a brass alloy.

The lighter wheels may have a sawtooth profile, not symmetrical like knurling wheels.

In most countries, legal tender isn't owned by the whomever happens to be holding it at the moment. In the UK, money belongs to the Crown, and Subjects are lent it to use as a medium of exchange. When coins had actual monetary value being made of Gold, Silver, Bronze, etc. it was common for the actual value of the metal to exceed its notional value. Therefore it was possible to profit by melting down coins whenever metal values were high. Doing this is very bad for the economy because everyone's ability to exchange goods reduces as the coinage disappears and because prices rise unecessarily because there's a shortage of coins. It's doubly bad if the metal is sent abroad. This is where the severe punishments come from, echoed today by the penalties for counterfeiting paper money.

Another potential offence is that defacing coinage is a way citizens in the past have shown distaste for their leaders. As Leaders tend to have delicate egos, it's often illegal to deface their images, even if they've been dead a century or two. Be careful abroad. Some countries will react if a tourist draws a moustache on a banknote!

In theory punishments for messing with coinage are severe, once including death sentences, transportation, and long prison sentences. But since about 1925 coins aren't normally made of metal having any real value. They really are just tokens. Melting down tons of current coins for their scrap value might get one into big trouble, but in practice no-one really cares. This is doubly true of coins that are no longer legal-tender. Unlikely anyone will mind if a few old coins are turned into something else.

But beware of modifying old coins without checking. A friend of mine found a Young Victoria Gold Sovereign in his back garden and drilled a hole in it to make a necklace for his daughter. Out of curiosity he showed it to a local Coin Dealer, who said without the hole it was a rare collectable in Extra Fine condition worth about £1500, probably considerably more at auction. With his hole, scrap value only...

Dave

People have used flint wheels from lighters in the past.

Any pictures of the ring forming process?

Neil

In the UK, only coins which are current legal tender are protected by law. For example, the old 50p coins or pound coins are fair game for defacing.

I have not taken any pictures yet as have been busy with setting up the lathe. The picture above the Morgan dollar's is a1948 half crown annealed & after the 1st push. I stopped at that because I was using a balling dome & ball. It started to mark the print. I now have some tapered stainless cones of various sizes & just got some Acetal to make tapered & parallel pushers. I also had trouble keeping the coin central whilst pressing the hole out. Had an idea after watching the American's do it. So looking to get a 2" pipe threaded coupling & a 2" cast blank plug. To make my own. Plus some cast reducers from 2" down to what I think will work. Coins you can wear on you tube is pretty much how I do it.

Steve.

Well watching the ring making on you tube tonight & thought of this forum. A few minutes of your time to watch this guy line a coin with silver. His technique for putting the solder on was good. The finished product was stunning & no black or green finger.

Not to take anything away from Steve's work - brilliant! - Cliffs Shed on the Toob has quite a lot of detail on ring making from coins. Interesting bloke. Cliff's Shed

Is that true? I couldn't find anything that confirms it, rather the opposite. For example, even though old pound coins aren't legal tender, they can still be exchanged for pound coins that are. Although the old pound coin was withdrawn because it was too easy to simulate well enough to fool a vending machine, they're still valid at the Bank of England.

Here's how the Bank of England define it: Legal tender has a narrow technical meaning which has no use in everyday life. It means that if you offer to fully pay off a debt to someone in legal tender, they can’t sue you for failing to repay. Curiously, while Banknotes are legal tender in England and Wales, they aren't in Scotland or Northern Ireland! It doesn't alter the price of fish.

I don't think the actual legalities matter in Stevie's case because his offence is entirely theoretical - it doesn't matter, and no one cares, nor are they likely to care. The Bank of England may even be pleased he's saving them the cost and bother of replacing old money. Far more exciting if Stevie was converting scrap into replica WW1 Trench Knives and selling them. Even though there's no law directly forbidding replica trench knives, expect to go to jail.

Good work from Stevie - attractive rings and impressive workmanship. More the merrier!

Dave

Hi, a photo of one I made earlier, very, very many year ago in fact, from a 1947 Two bob Bit.

Another view and a couple of views of one I started around the same time, but never finished, from a 1933 Florin, Rings

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 23/01/2020 14:29:52

Looking at that ring above. Is that 2 rings joined at the centre. I think when making them the only limit is the imagination. I was looking at one last night, the guy is making a miniature bell from 2 coins. That got me thinking of doing one slightly differently & making it work using a ball bearing somehow fused to a piece of guitar string or such. MMn no probably a cast or brass ball, drilling a hole in a ball bearing would be difficult, Sorry(thinking aloud)& then machining a miniature handle to complete. If I do attempt to make one I will try & draw it 1st in autocad. So I have actual drawings for reference.

Hi Steviegtr, it is a single coin, no joins whatsoever.

Regards Nick.