Remarkable-Rings
  • Welcome
  • Washer Rings
  • 3D Printing
  • Links to Products
  • Blog
  • Store Front
  • Welcome
  • Washer Rings
  • 3D Printing
  • Links to Products
  • Blog
  • Store Front

Washer Rings AKA Coin Rings

Picture
All of the rings shown in the top picture are custom silver rings formed from washers; at least half of these rings were based on modified washers or washers completely produced with the help of a Desktop CNC Machine. For an example of a washer 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.
Picture
Shown in the next picture is another silver washer; this washer is made from a 90% silver US Half Dollar (pre-1965).
Picture
Now that we have our washer, the next step is to form or forge the washer into a ring.
If you are in the jewelry business, then you probably know all about forming washers into rings. Nonetheless, please continue reading. By the way, whenever I bring up my joyous hobby of ring making to friends and colleagues at work, I do manage to make sales from time to time. Word-of-mouth method seems to works better for me, though other social alternatives may work better for others. So far I have found Christmas and Valentine's Day to be the best holidays when it comes to selling silver coin rings (IMO).
On to the craft!

Picture
A couple tools of the trade for this type of ring making is a rawhide hammer and metal ring mandrel. The mandrel you just saw in the previous picture. The rawhide hammer shown next is a fairly common model you can find online.
Picture
To form a ring band that was recently soldered together back into a circular shape, a jeweler typically grabs the trusty metal (or other material such as wood) mandrel and rawhide hammer first. This helps him or her to reform the ring into a perfect circle. For forming a flat washer into a ring, these basic tools will do the job alright, but it may take quite an effort to hammer a flat coin into a size 15!
Picture
These days, I usually reach for my Durston ring stretcher to stretch a coin ring through a bunch of preliminary sizes first; then I may finalize the ring to its target size with the Rawhide mallet and mandrel.
The Durston 6-spline ring stretcher is shown below. Notice the double-sided reducing die plate that comes standard with the Durston.
Picture
I recently updated the Durston reducing plate with a plate designed for coin ringers 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
If you would like to learn more about coin rings, including step-by-step instructions on "How to Make Coin Rings", click the button below.
Click Me!
Remarkable-Rings