Fast and Fused Chevron Ring

1. Chevron Intro: My name is Kelly diamond and I'm a metal smith and teacher here in Syracuse, New York. And today I'd like to show you how to make the fused our Gentium Chevron ring. We're going to use our Gentium silver, which fuses to itself without the need for pickle, solder flux, anything like that. So it's an easy entry into working with metal. And you can make, once you know how you can make them for every finger, you can stack them. You can make them for your friends, whatever you like. So it's pretty easy to get started with. And when you're done, I'd love it if you post what you make in the student's section so we can cheer you on. 2. Materials and Supplies: So for this project, for making our chevron ring, we are going to use a few different tools and materials. One of the first things you'll need is a ring sizing chart. This one I printed from Rio Grande. But you can call them anywhere else on the Internet as well. Just a free chart for doing your ring size. You'll need a rawhide or plastic palette. You will need a ring mandrel with sizes on it. You will need a flat nose pliers or a pair of flush cutters with the flat side. A micro torch or source of heat similar to that. Digital calipers or a ruler with millimeter sizes, you may potentially need a steel bench block if you have to do any flattening of your ring. You'll need a metal file with a flat side. And you'll need some polishing devices. So this is a flash shine or in a polishing pad. That's one option. You'll also need for your fusing. You'll need the wire. We use a 16 gauge, our Gentium wire, and we need a SATA right board or some other type of soldering surface such as a fire brick, a charcoal block, whenever you're preferred method for soldering is it's best when you're fusing to have a relatively clean board. A lot of our boards in the studio get crusty and nasty. We want a nice clean area so that nothing interferes with our fusing. And then you need a fireproof surface, such as a tile, a cookie sheet, ceramic tiles, great. To protect your surface underneath. And that's about all we need to do this project, as you can see, we didn't need any flux and a solder, any pickle, things like that. So just a few simple supplies to get started at home. 3. Finding your ring size: So before you start to make your chevron rang, you're going to need to figure out approximately what your ring sizes. Because these rings have some flexibility in them. You don't have to be terribly precise about the size that you are going for because there's going to be some room to maneuver this around due to its shape. But to get kind of a ballpark, what you could do is if you have a ring mandrel available, you can take a ring that fits you for the finger that you want and you can measure it on the ring mandrel. We use the central line method in the studio, which means where it falls across the center of your rank. So this is, this is a little bit over a size 5, not quite a size five and a quarter. And that fits me fine. So I would actually probably do a size 5 for this k. The other things you can do there are lots of ways to link in Google how to find my ring size and use one of those methods. In the studio, we use an actual ring size or to measure our fingers and you can buy those as well. They are available online. Okay? So you just really need to get an approximation of the ring size that you need so that you can begin to make your teardrops shape for your chef. 4. Measuring the wire: Okay, so now we're going to find the length of wire that we need. And I'm going to use a size eight ring and we have 16 gauge wire. So where the two of those intersect is at 60.92. This is a free ring sizing chart I printed out from Rio Grande. There are other free ring sizing charts on the Internet. If you just do a Google search, I'm sure you can find some. And these are obviously in US sizes. So I'm going to add eight millimeters to that number to accommodate for the fold that we're going to put into our chevron ring. So basically I'm going to round that 16.92 up to 61. And then I'm going to add another eight millimeters for a total of 69 millimeters. Then I'm going to use my ring. Well, not my ring, but my caliper. I'm going to turn it on, make sure it's set for millimeters and make sure that it's all zeroed out while the jaws are closed. And then I'm going to slide that out 69 millimeters or close enough to it, 69.6, that's fine. Then I'm going to down and I'm going to use the length between these two bottom jaws as my measurement. I want to make sure my wire is straight. And I also want to make sure that the end of that I'm starting with is a flush cut. So this right now has that little divot on it. So I'm going to just trim that off with the flat side of my flush cutters so that it's straight to begin with. And then I'm going to measure the distance between the two tips of the caliper. And then I'm going to make another flush cut to the part that I'm keeping. You can mark it with a sharpie if you prefer, or you can just cut it flat like I do. He wanted to make sure you haven't between those two tips. Okay. Then you're going to file these edges flat. Just give it a little quick flatness and get ready to shape it. We're going to use way more filings, so I'm just going to stop there. 5. Shaping the ring: Next we are going to shape our metal into a teardrop shape using are bringing man. And we're going to find the size where we, that we chose for our ring measurements. So I chose a size eight and I'm going to place my wire right on the size 8 on my ring mandrel. And then I'm just going to basically have even amount on each side and I'm going to use my thumbs and my fingers. Just going to hold up my thumb and I'm going to use my finger to bring it around so that those sorry, I got off the camera there. I'm bringing it around, just wrapping it around with my fingers to form the beginnings of a teardrop shape. So you can see I kinda have a U shape, but if I were to bring these together, I'll get a teardrop right? Before I bring them together though, I want to file my edges at a 45 degree angle right about here. And I want these two, basically this arm of that I call them arms. This arm that I'm filing right now is going to sit and rest on the upper arm. And so when they come together, I want there to be a nice smooth drawing right there. And I want it to sit and rest nicely. And that's why I'm filing it at a 45 degree angle. This one here. Also a 45 degree angle so that when the two meet, they just filed some of my fingernail off there isn't unusual for me. So when the two meet, we can do more of that after we fuse it to, but so that we have a nice smooth join there as well. But we just like when we're fusing anything, we want to have a really nice tight fit here. There needs to be tension and you can't have any gaps. So you shouldn't be able to get your fingernail in here. Everything should feel level and smooth and there should be tensions. So sometimes you have to push the arm past each other, right? The arms past each other so that there's tension when this is leaning against the other one. You want it to be nice and tight right there. So that's looking pretty good to me. And now we're gonna go ahead and get that fused. 6. Fusing: We are now ready to fuse our, our Gentium ring and we're going to make sure we have thought right board with some type of fireproof surface behind us. So a ceramic or this is a slate tile, will work well. We're just going to use once again our microbe torch. And we are going to just think there's a few different parts of the torch you need to know. One is the safety latch, the other is being lighter, and the third is the hold button. So the safety latch needs to be pulled out. And then you hit the executor until you get a flaming. Don't always get it on the first try. So sometimes you have to pull it down again and hit Ignite again. Will there we have a claim. We're going to hit the hold button and now we're ready to use it. And we're going to just start to warm up our piece. I'm looking for it to get sort of a pinkish glow to it. And it's starting to get that pinkish color. It's kinda hard to see on the camera, I'm sure. And once it gets that, I'm going to focus on fusing this one area, okay. And I'm looking for it to get a glassy color. So we're bringing it up to the molten stage, but we don't want to pass that molten stage and go into melting. So it's sort of a fine line between fusing and melting. Sometimes you can even see those molecules in there start. If it gets really red hot and nothing happens, then I would stop there because we're going to overheat and melts. I'm going to stop there and I'm going to check and see how we did. The key to using our jumped him is to not move it while it's hot. If you do, it will break. It's a very vulnerable while it's still pink and it's very fragile. So unlike sterling silver, where you can pick up and quench right away our Gentium, you need to let it cool for a little bit before moving in. So I'm just going to let it air dry and then we'll check out, see how we did. 7. File and polish: Okay, So taking a look at this, it looks like we did a good job. Everything is solid and tight and everything is together. Well, this side looks a little cleaner than the front side where we were originally fusing it. So this is the side that I'm going to want to have facing out. And the other side I will have facing under. But it's still pretty sharp right here. So we're going to need to do some filing to just smooth that out with. And what we're wanting to do is just use our file and a rounding it sort of round our hand while we're doing this because we can do it from different directions. If we just go flat across the top, we'll just get a flat spot there. We're going to get that smooth. And then the next step is good to polish. And I like to use it. If I'm in the studio, I would just throw the sum of the tumbler after it's all shaped. But if I'm going to polish with something like a flash shine or I like to do it while it's flat because it's easier to get in there. And once again, these flash INRs are a three-step process. So you first use the gray side of the Scheiner than the green side and then the white side. And it's just a process of buffing it. So you'll just take the gray over the whole entire surface, cleaning everything off. And once again, it's kind of an annoying sound. So I'm not going to do the whole thing. And he would do the green over the whole thing front and back. And then you would do the white. And once you get to the white, you're going to really start to see the shine come out. So other options are the Tumblr. If you have a polishing machine, if you have a buffing wheel on your flex shaft, anything like that would work just as well. But this is a nice, handy, easy thing to have at home. I also use these polishing pads to get to the inside of my ring as well. So these are great. They can do it. You can do the whole thing with this as well in lieu of the flesh Scheiner. So a couple of options for getting everything nice and shiny. And then our next step is to get it all bet. 8. Bending the Ring: Now that our ring is shined and all smooth on the tip, we're ready to actually form it into the Chevron ring shape. You also want to just try it on the finger that we want to wear it on and make sure that it fits pretty well. It's not too loose. If you find it is not the right shape. Now would be the time to put it back on your ring mandrel and just get it formed around the size that you want. Mine is for an eight, but I actually like how it's fitting right there. So I'm not going to push it any water because it fits perfectly. There's a lot of forgiveness in here because of that little tip that we have on the end. So I want to take that little. Then I want to bend it down and I want to use, we want to have the smoother of the two sides in the front. So this is the smoother side. This side still has a little line right there which I could fall out if I wanted to, but it's the bottom of my rank, so I'm not too worried about it. It's going to be turned under. So I'm going to just use a pair of flat nose pliers. And I'm going to grasp right about here. So you can make your point if you come down here, you can make a shorter point if you come way out here. But I measured for a to have about four millimeters on each side. So I want to leave about four millimeters on each end. So I'm going to measure it and market if you'd like and put your your tool on the marks. But I'm always an eyeball or so I'm just going to eyeball this. I think I'm going to go right about here. I'm going to support with my thumb. And then I'm just going to turn my metal down so that it's pressed flat up against the tool. And you want, if you want to, you can even take your little hammer and tap it down. Not necessary though. You'll get just a cute little bend. And then when you put it on, you have your little chevron. And once again, you can go back to polish it a little bit if you want. If there are any scratches in there, mine has a little bit of a scratch right there, so I would go over that with my buffing wheel to get some of those scratches out or you can go over it with some sandpaper. But otherwise, it's all shaped and ready to wear.