As promised, I published the 3rd Version of my How to Make Coin Rings ebook. If you purchased in the past, please let me know and I will send you a pdf copy as a thank you.
I may publish this book on Amazon and take down my business website in the near future. We'll see what happens with my other projects, but a business website costs about $35/month. That may not seem like much to some, but when no products are sold, then it's a loss.
I added a 100W Fiber Laser to my tool arsenal in late May 2022, and I have lots of new projects in mind....think knife engraving, ring engraving, sword engraving, etc.... but I haven't even fired it up yet due to home improvement and repairs, and car repairs needing done. I'm not kidding when I tout myself as a Renaissance Man. Why? Because I replaced an alternator, tires, brakes, etc  in my wife's car; I replaced timing chain, front struts, brakes and rotors on my car; I'm replacing two bathroom floors, tubs, and showers due to shoddy installation when the house was new, etc. ....and I promised my wife no new "fun" projects until I'm done with the kids floor/tub/shower. Not kidding. Though 3D Printing doesn't count ;)

My next post will come when I'm done with tiling the kid's bathroom :)

Hey there! We're still around, and working on jewelry ideas and prototypes. COVID-19 struct a blow to our families this year. On January 1st, 2021, Mark's brother died from ALS and COVID-19. Shawn was only 53 years old, but was in poor health due to the destructive nature of ALS. Just like Mark's Brother, many people have succumbed to COVID-19 and are gone way too soon.

1. Out of Spec Precious Metal
The first sheet of 12 Gauge 925 Sterling Silver I used happened to be the only one of three sheets to measure incorrectly at 1.22” x 6” versus the specified 1.25” x 6”. In order to use the silver sheet (purchased from Rio Grande) that did not meet our specification, I redesigned the double-sided coin to be smaller.

• Lesson: Measure all precious metal items received from vendors and be sure to contact the vendor upon finding problems like the under-sized 925 sterling silver sheet.

2. Poor Mounting of Material
Discovered after breaking several bits (0.8 mm and 0.3 mm) that the outside edges of the silver square (1.25” x 1.22”) were 0.05 -0.1 mm higher than at the middle of the sheet. The single wood screw that I employed to hold the silver sheet down into the mount put unequal forces in the middle of the coin versus supporting the whole square.  Added L-shaped metal brackets to better hold the sheet down uniformly flat.

• Lesson: Ensure the silver is held down flat and take Z-zero measurements at several spots for verification before carving.

3. Too Fast and Deep CNC Machining
Broke a 0.8 mm ball nose bit during a Roughing operation. This may have been due to my attempt to carve un-annealed silver with increased feeds & speeds. For success, I lowered the depth of cut from .15mm to .10 mm. and annealed the silver sheet.

• Lesson: Always anneal the silver sheet before carving each major toolpath (such as roughing and finishing).

4. Un-Optimized CNC Toolpaths
Broke several bits (0.3 mm ball nose) during Finishing toolpath operations due to a 3D design issue where the offset of the Finishing toolpath was too small (0.15 mm should be okay in normal circumstances). This caused the small bit to scrape the ragged outside walls leftover from the roughing toolpath. Changed the offset to 0.3-0.5 mm to ensure the bit cleared the walls.

• Lesson: Verify the toolpaths using the Preview Toolpaths feature in Aspire. Unfortunately, on jagged designs such as the Rose Coin, trial and error might be necessary.

5. Mounting and Software Situational Awareness
Discovered late in the double-sided operation that one or more toolpaths did not carve centered in the silver square. This problem is caused by several factors. For one thing, I’ve verified several times during the design stage that some part of the 3D design was not centered in Aspire. This is a huge problem that must be resolved by better situational awareness. If you get the design under control, there is still the physical mounting of the silver sheet that must be centered. Maybe more significantly, I found that the wood mount was not exactly equal to the size of the silver square. The mount was actually 1/32” larger than the silver square in each direction (x and y). Lastly, if using a wood screw to help hold down the silver square to the mount, it must be screwed into the wood straight. If it is screwed into the wood crookedly, it can possibly shift the silver square in both the x and y directions; especially, if the mount is larger than the silver square in the first place.

• Lesson (1): Frequently check that the 3D design is centered in Aspire before saving and using the toolpaths to carve precious metal.
• Lesson (2) Ensure the wood mount is perfectly matched to the silver sheet. If not, start a new mount. 

Hi there! I've been refining my Coin Rings over the years, and I wanted to document what I discovered during my experiences. In this Kindle book, I pinpoint the problems I see with all coin rings made from currency coins, and provide what many coin ring makers, including me, do to mitigate these problems. I go one huge step further and provide a path for those wishing to use CNC Machines to make better rings. I love the ability to create coin rings using coin ring making tools and the procedures and skills I have developed. Now I make custom, double-sided, precious metal rings using these tools and skills along with my desktop CNC Machine. By the way, the rings shown on the Remarkable-Rings Welcome Page were made using coin ringing tools and the CNC Machine.

Do you own silver coins that have grime or tarnish in their crannies? I sure do. Take a look at this pile of junk coins I bought from an Ebay seller.

As you can see, most of these coins are pretty tarnished.  Here are the steps I take to clean up grimy coins.

Here we have 3 Walking Liberty half dollars. Notice the grime in the cracks.

First step is to heat up the coin to a dull red, and then quench it in water.

Here is the coin after pulling it out of the water. Lots of fire-scale; ready for pickling.

Next step is to drop the coin in a hot batch of Pickle.

The pickle will remove the fire-scale and leave a pristine white coin.

Next step is to use a brass wire bristle Dremel attachment to strip away the whiteness and reveal the prized shine.