Washer Rings AKA Coin Rings
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.
Shown in the next picture is another silver washer; this washer is made from a 90% silver US Half Dollar (pre-1965).
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!
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!
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.
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!
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.
The Durston 6-spline ring stretcher is shown below. Notice the double-sided reducing die plate that comes standard with the Durston.
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.