How to make wedding bands. My experience and results that I wanted to share.
This post is to show off the rings I made, first time I ever made gold rings, but mostly to be a step by step to help someone down the road who wants to make their own like I did and finds my post. I thought it would be much more sentimental to melt down my parents rings and make our own than just to go buy some from a jeweler.
I wanted to make my own wedding bands for me and my partner, but there was not too many resources out there that told me exactly what I needed to do. So between some old Reddit posts, talking to people on Reddit, YouTube videos, the rest of the internet, as well as some trial and error while making them, I was able to put together the method I used for making these rings. I'm a woodworker and somewhat good with my hands, but all of this was new to me and I learned it as I went. I made rings a few times out of silver first, as practice, and when I made about 8 of them without issue I moved onto gold. Silver is a bit more difficult than yellow gold as it cracks more easily, but it is good that I practiced because that really prepared me when I made my white gold ring which was significantly more brittle.
Melting it down:
I took my parents 14k yellow gold wedding bands, as they have passed away, and melted those down in a "Nelyrho 3kg melting furnace". I used a small jewelry crucible on top of the upside down 3kg crucible. I originally tried just using a torch and surrounding it with bricks and heating it up for a long time but it never got molten enough. So I bought the furnace to get the extra heat. It worked amazingly! I used borax flux to "season" the crucible. You basically just sprinkle The Borax over the crucible heavily and it will melt together to make an extremely smooth surface. Once The crucible is extremely hot, glowing red, and ready for the gold, you turn off the flame and put the gold in the crucible and then sprinkle a little bit more borax flux on the gold. Then I put the lid on and the graphite ingot mold on top of the furnace, so it would heat up, and then forgot about it. Just walk away! It really helps for it to be absolutely molten and extremely hot. The first few times I poured it, it was technically molten, but it cooled so quickly that it didn't create a good ingot. So let it heat up much longer than you think when when it's already liquid.
Ingot working:
Now that I had my little ingot I took it to a mill that I bought. "Vevor jewelry rolling Mill". You gotta go slow, and take many small passes. If you feel a good amount of resistance it has "work hardened" and needs to be annealed which is heating it up with a torch to a dull cherry red, and then letting it cool back to grey before quenching it in water. To help the oxidation process I would dip it in denatured alcohol mixed with the borax flux before annealing. After annealing you keep on milling it and working it to the shape and size you want! I went with two flat bands, so they were pretty easy. I googled a ring sizing chart that tells you how long your strip of metal should be in mm based on how thick it is for a specific ring size. I got my metal the right width, thickness and length and then cut it with a coping saw slightly above that length. Then I annealed it again, and took it to my ring press "Jazorr ring bending tool". I went slowly and first used the largest ring size, 22, and then went down from there slowly to not bend it too quickly. After 22, I did 20, then 18, then 16 for my fiancee's size 5.5 finger. Now that it was round I annealed it again and then slightly opened it up with pliers and then filed the inside of the two ends where they will be soldered together. Once filed and as close together as can be with no gaps or angles I dipped the whole thing in the alcohol borax flux solution and then put 3 hard solder chips on the seam. (3 was too many but I wanted to be sure. 1 or 2 would have probably worked). After cooling I put it on my ring mandrel and hammered it to make sure it was completely and symmetrically round.
Sanding and polishing:
After it was completely round I hand sanded with 150 and used a Dremel with a light abrasive wheel and removed all large irregularities and defects. Then I used a hand file to slightly round over the corners and give it the shape I wanted, as well as removing more oxidation and imperfections. Then I used my wood lathe (although this could be done by hand) to sand it through the grits, 220, 320, 400, 600, 1000, 2000, 3000. After sanding to 3000 I rubbed it clean with a cloth and then used a buffing wheel with rouge compound to get a wicked shine. I think I should have done the brown compound first because there are still a few very faint scratches, but overall I'm very happy.
My ring, you can probably tell by the color, is white gold as well as yellow gold. That was unexpected and significantly more difficult to make but it's possible! If you care to hear about that ask me and I'll tell you that too.
I'm super proud of myself because besides the practice rings I did with silver just prior, these gold rings are my first attempt and they came out perfect for us! Fits perfectly, great shine, the exact shape we wanted. I'm so happy!
Also thanks to the Reddit community for helping me with my random questions over the months.