Brass rings

Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy to do so much of the fabrication myself. Making the band for this type of ring requires:

1. cutting a strip out of my brass sheet
2. sanding off the rough edges
3. annealing with my torch
4. running it through the embossing machine
5. punching a hole in the middle
6. bending the metal strip around a ring mandrel 
7. pickling to get the fire scale off 
8. tumbling to make it shiny

That's just the band, but the rest is easy. I look for a bead, nut and bolt that fits. Usually I need a metal disk as a kind of washer/bead cap. I make those out of sheet metal as well (which involves most of the same steps as the band). Crazy? Perhaps. But I have to justify purchasing all of those tools.

Drudge work

Okay, that is a rather negative title, but what else do you call working for hours on components without having a single piece of jewelry to show for it?

Friday I got the torch out and made headpins:

Another great thing about bronze is that you can take off the fire scale with some steel wool. Copper has to go into a pickle solution for at least 24 hours, and then also scrubbed with steel wool.

Saturday I got out my disc cutter and my earplugs:

Most of these will become bead caps. I just ordered a fancy piece of equipment that will emboss them, but it will take a few weeks to get here.

When I'm too braindead to make anything, I like to admire my bead collection. My mom made these. She's amazing, isn't she?

So, lots of work but nothing to show for it, really. I love the idea of making my own components, but it is a rather labor-intensive process.