This Couple Wanted Their Wedding Bands To Be Special. So They Did THIS

Author:

17 jun 2014 12:42

Tags: rings wedding

Engagements and marriages are full of traditions that most people follow (but probably have no idea how they actually started). Some people, however, make their own traditions. As a result, their weddings are as unique as their love and relationship. Instead of buying their wedding rings, one couple decided to do something a little different. They bought some gold… and then proceeded to
make their wedding rings.

This Couple Wanted Their Wedding Bands To Be Special. So They Did THIS

“We are getting married this summer. We opted to make our own rings and decided on fairly simple 18k white gold bands. The raw material is melted and poured into a cast.”

“This is what the cast looks like. There is something really cool about the idea that our rings will be made out of the same piece of metal.”

“The ingot begins the slow process of getting stretched and squished. Essentially it goes through a series of industrial strength pasta presses – one to “square” the ingot (pictured here) and then another to flatten the metal to the approximate width/thickness.”

“Again, using the magic of levers, the band begins to take shape.”

“This is actually a pretty slow process, as you want to shape the band without giving it a twist or breaking the metal.”

“Once the ends come together, the excess is sawed by hand (gold is expensive and even the little shavings are scavenged for processing and recycling). Not pictured, but the ring is then pressed in a series of decreasingly small cone-shaped sizers until the ends meet.”

“Once the ends come together, the ring is soldered with slightly softer gold. This is very difficult – there isn’t much difference between the melting point of the band and the metal used for the solder. There is actually a lot of heating and quenching – any time you put the metal under stress (rolling, pressing etc.) you heat it up and quench it to release the excess tension in the metal.”

“The interior, once shaped, is pretty rough. Smoothing is done via rotary tool, sandpaper, polishing cloth, and whatever else you can get your hands on that will remove material smoothly. The ring gets VERY hot from the friction so you end up taking frequent breaks to give your toasty digits a rest.”