Making your own wedding rings is a great way of being really involved in the preparation of your special day. No prior experience of jewellery making or silversmithing is required. It's interesting how many people I get through to my regular classes and they are almost apologetic for being, in their own words, "not very arty" or "I'm not creative".
You don't need to have experience, or to come up with a clever design, just an idea of what you like and we can attempt to create it.
I had a special workshop day last Autumn, with a couple making their own wedding rings. What was an additional bit of 'special' was that they gave me a bundle of old, vintage and sentimental jewellery to melt down.
We planned that I would spend a day melting down the jewellery, that was no longer worn, broken or just not to their taste.
When a family member gives us a piece of jewellery, and it happens so often! We often feel obliged (sorry horrible word) to wear it, or have it repaired and wear it as it is, but we don't. Maybe it isn't our style, it's old fashioned and just not US. So many times have I been approached by customers who have kept these pieces in a drawer or jewellery boxes for years and it's never used, but they don't quite want to part with it.
Repurposing the jewellery is such a nice way to use those sentimental pieces, but wear them in a way you would like. Having them remade into something that is more YOU ensures that at least they will be worn and enjoyed, rather than being stored away and forgotten about. The gold or silver can be melted down and made into a new ring, earrings, pendant, depending on what you would like and how much metal there is.
With this particular task I melted down the gold jewellery and there was enough to make his and hers wedding rings.
Started by preparing the gold, melting it down and then rolling the two ingots through my rolling mill, until we ended up with the two strips of gold (above right). These were filed along the long edges and shaped around a ring mandrel, checking the size before the couple cut off the excess at one end of their metal.
After filing the ends so they sit together nicely, we then solder the rings using flux and gold solder wire. Spending the time on the filing ensures that we can create a good, neat join with the solder.
The rings were finished with a matt satin polish on the polishing motor.
