Washer Rings (Coin Rings)

All of the rings shown in the top picture are silver rings formed from coins.  At least half of these rings were made from half-dollar US coins; the rest of the coins were produced with the help of a Desktop CNC Machine. For an example of a coin that was completely formed using a CNC Machine, look at the picture of the shell design. This creation started out as a sheet of 12-gauge .925 sterling silver.
The next picture shows another silver washer, but this washer is made from a 90% silver US Half Dollar (pre-1965).
Now how do we form the coin into a ring? The previous two pictures show the coins with a hole punched or carved out. This hole will become one edge of the ring, but it must be stretched without splitting the coin.
For my shop, we usually reach for the tools of the trade, such as coin ring dies and punches, and the mechanical ring stretcher (blue device on left). These tools help us stretch flat coins into a cone shapes, and then through a bunch of preliminary sizes until the final size. Then, we fine tune and finalize the ring to its target size with a Rawhide mallet and ring sizing mandrel. 
About eight years ago, we replaced the Chinese ring stetcher with the Durston 6-spline ring stretcher as shown below. Notice the double-sided reducing die plate that comes standard with the Durston.
Several years ago, we updated the included double-sided Durston reducing plate with a double-sided plate designed for coin rings by a fellow coin ringer, Skylar Jenkins. His plate is available from Pepetools and has the following features:
  • Hardened and polished tool steel
  • 14 total reducing dies: .9", 1", 1.1", 1.2", 1.3", 1.4" 1.5"
  • Side A has 17 degree true conical taper; Side B has 25 degree true conical taper
  • Inside diameter mounting hole is 18mm
​As you can see in the picture below, there are many other tools of the trade to make coin rings faster and better. We still have many of the tools we started with from almost a decade ago. And though I have upgraded the blue Chines ring stretcher with the Durston, all of these specialized tools, along with an occasional customer commission, make this a great hobby.
If you would like to learn more about coin rings, including step-by-step instructions on "How to Make Custom Coin Rings", click the button below.