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Making my own wedding rings

300 points by robenkleene 2y ago

doctoboggan 2y ago
When I was getting married a few years ago I started down this path as well. However I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to get the quality I wanted so I ended up finding someone who would be able to 3d print and cast my design. There are casting houses out in LA that will accept a STL file and will 3d print, cast, and finish your ring for you. The price is very reasonable, just labor and a bit of a premium on top of the spot gold price. Using that experience I ended up starting a side business where I sell custom designed jewelry. My most popular design incorporates my customer's fingerprints. I build a pipeline that lets me go from a jpeg or other image file of the fingerprint to a fully 3d printable STL file (mostly using the blender python API). Because there are so many casting houses in LA they compete to keep the prices down. My completely custom rings that I have cast in small batches (compared to the large chains), are still very cost competitive with the competition.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Has anyone including you stopped to think of the security implications of of making a thumbprint jewelry like this?
  - meatmanek 2y ago
    You leak your fingerprints every time you touch a smooth surface; one extra copy on an unlikely-to-be-lost item doesn't really increase your risk much.
  - sunshinesnacks 2y ago
    I never wear my rings places where I don’t also bring my fingers, and rings don’t leave oily prints like my fingers do. Sarcasm aside, I’m not sure how this is a security risk.
    - fbdab103 2y ago
      In 2014[0], someone stole the German Defense Minister's fingerprint from a picture. We are well past the point where you can assume your biometrics are secure. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2014/12/29/german_minister_fingered_as_hackers_steal_her_thumbprint_from_a_photo/ https://www.theregister.com/2014/12/29/german_minister_finge...
    - dylan604 2y ago
      I guess you can go ahead and take "criminal mastermind" from your CV! Why would I think that a physical 3D object with the pattern of my fingerprint that can be carried around and held up to anything might possibly be a security issue? Nope, I can't think of anything...
      - krisoft 2y ago
        > I guess you can go ahead and take "criminal mastermind" from your CV! Careful, your sarcasm is dripping! > Why would I think that a physical 3D object with the pattern of my fingerprint that can be carried around and held up to anything might possibly be a security issue? Have you looked at the image of the ring? How do you plan to scan that anywhere?
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Do you have an image? I am struggling to imagine how/where you squeeze in a fingerprint unless it is really scaled down or some kind of wrap around the band. Are the grooves deeply etched? Or coated with some kind of protective layer? I imagine a few years of friction would rub away the finer details.
  - doctoboggan 2y ago
    Sure, here is an image: https://lulimjewelry.com/cdn/shop/products/fingerprint-closeup.jpg https://lulimjewelry.com/cdn/shop/products/fingerprint-close... The grooves are cast quite deeply. I don’t anticipate any problems and I’ve been wearing mine for 7 years.
zachthewf 2y ago
We had a great experience doing this in a much less hardcore way through this company: https://withtheseringshandmade.com/ https://withtheseringshandmade.com/ I'd recommend to anyone who is interested but does not have the skills to make a ring on your own. Great weekend trip from Seattle too.
- cactusplant7374 2y ago
  How much did you end up paying?
  - zachthewf 2y ago
    I don't remember exactly, but somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000.
- ygra 2y ago
  We did something like that as well. Cost was comparable to just buying rings (most of that was the gold, anyway). We started with a blank strip of metal with the correct cross-section, which was first bent, then soldered together, then sized appropriately and polished. Was a fun day.
Bluestein 2y ago
> I’m reminded of the trial and error, the mistakes, the frustrations, the determination to keep working through problems, and the eventual beautiful success. > Hmm. That almost sounds like a relationship. Best bit.- Wishing them all success.-
themadturk 2y ago
My wife's father was a gemologist and metalsmith. When we got married 42 years ago, he made both of our wedding rings -- lost wax casting, of course, since 3D printing wasn't a thing. Mine is a plain rose gold band, hers is antiqued gold leaves surround a diamond (he was an experienced gem faceter, but would not touch diamonds, which he'd rarely worked with, so ours came from a diamond dealer). He had me pour the gold for both rings. It's nice to have a story to go with them!
- gregschlom 2y ago
  > lost wax casting, of course, since 3D printing wasn't a thing Just to nitpick, even with 3D printing these days, the process is still called lost wax casting. The printer prints a wax version of the model, and then the plaster is poured around it to make a mold and the wax model is melted out. The only difference is that the wax model is made by a 3d printer rather than by hand.
  - ortusdux 2y ago
    There are burnout printer filaments and resins as well, so I've heard it referred as 'lost plastic' casting https://helpcenter.phrozen3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/6325283749529-Burnout-schedules-for-Phrozen-Castable-Resin https://helpcenter.phrozen3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/632528374...
  - alvah 2y ago
    To nitpick your nitpick, lost PLA casting is most definitely a thing; no wax required.
  - willcipriano 2y ago
    I've seen: 3d print a part (resin printer), make a mold from the 3d printed part with modeling clay or whatever, cast wax in the mold and then sand cast metal with the wax casting. I think the 3d printed part wouldn't burn away as cleanly as the wax that is designed for that purpose. Probably faster if you want more than one as well.
gregschlom 2y ago
This is cool but for people without access to all the tools, a much easier way is to just upload your design to Shapeways.com and let them take care of all the casting. (https://www.shapeways.com/materials/gold https://www.shapeways.com/materials/gold) You can also have your design done in brass first for relatively cheap, to validate the design. I made our wedding rings that way, as well as quite a bit of jewelry over the years for my spouse. (pendants, earrings, etc...)
- hooverd 2y ago
  Unfortunately... https://hackaday.com/2024/07/04/shapeways-files-for-bankruptcy/ https://hackaday.com/2024/07/04/shapeways-files-for-bankrupt... You wouldn't guess it from their website at the moment though.
- agg23 2y ago
  I did this with silver (see my other comment) and it was a great experience. I was very sad to hear Shapeways is shutting down.
mauvehaus 2y ago
A couple fun facts about casting metals: Many of them shrink when they solidify. For the size and tolerances needed for a ring you can probably ignore this detail. You can get what is called a low-shrink mold made for some alloys that helps mitigate this if you want to make your prototype to finished size (or you didn't know better before you takes to the jeweler). Patternmakers deal with this using what are called shrink rules. They look like regular rules, but are e.g. 5% longer. If you're buying an old rule, make sure you don't get one by mistake. Silver rings, worn regularly, won't need to be polished to keep the tarnish at bay; the contact from your skin will do quite well enough. Our wedding rings are also silver, and I've only polished mine when I haven't worn it for a while. Ours probably don't polish up to quite the same luster though. They're a regular alloy of silver for jewelry and not silver and gold.
- ggreer 2y ago
  I was worried about the metal shrinking, but I only had to increase the size of my prints by 1.6% to get the desired ring size. eg: The PLA ring had an inner diameter of 16.8mm and the casting had a diameter of 16.5mm. Thanks for the info about the lack of tarnish. I'm glad I won't have to do much maintenance.
  - mauvehaus 2y ago
    Since you cast this a few times, I have to ask: did you determine the shrink ratio empirically or were you able to look it up? This is a super cool project, and I'm impressed that you got it done before the wedding!
    - ggreer 2y ago
      I looked around online and answers ranged from no shrinkage to 6%. For my first attempt I split the difference (3%), then measured the actual diameter with calipers. Also I tended to err on the side of making the ring too small, as it’s pretty easy to remove material from the inside of the ring.
- Lev1a 2y ago
ulysses1244 2y ago
I am in the process of doing this as well, but I’m trying to stay on a tight budget. After 10 failures and different trials, this is my rough process: - Melt fine silver with a butane torch - Pour it into a circle mold with a metal rod in the middle (makeshift ring mold). I tried sand casting with a wax mold but couldn’t keep the metal hot enough to fill the chamber. - Hammer the ring on metal ring mandrel to shape and increase the size. This took probably 5,000 light hits with a metal hammer, periodically annealing. - Use a dremel and grinding stone to further shape it - Sand and polish by hand Since I shaped it with a metal hammer, it has a really nice and natural hammer finish that I plan to keep. I’m considering trying to electroplate it in palladium since the fine silver will tarnish and scratch over time, but it’ll be harder to fix inevitable mistakes.
- ggreer 2y ago
  How did you deal with the molten silver dissolving oxygen from the atmosphere? Even if you keep it under a reducing flame, you'll have to take the flame off eventually and some O2 will get in, which will cause defects as the metal solidifies.
  - bigiain 2y ago
    I wonder if using the gas shroud from a mig/tig welder might work?
  - ulysses1244 2y ago
    Yes this definitely happens to an extent. I mostly solved it by grinding away the outside. I used 2x the amount of silver that I ultimately needed, knowing I’d have to remove some. I’m figuring it out as I go, but it doesn’t seem to be a major issue.
HanClinto 2y ago
Excellent post! Excellent problem-solving, and very nice result!! Taking a completely direction, my wife and I made our own wedding rings out of stainless steel (a low-nickel alloy suitable for contact with skin -- 316L, I think), and we milled them on a lathe in my employer's machine shop after hours. Nearly 20 years later, and they have held up remarkably well. If you're going to lathe a ring, make sure you do as much shaping and polishing before you detach it from the rest of the rod, and then create a mandrel that is the correct size to hold the ring (using friction) from the other direction. Hammer it onto the mandrel, do your final burr-removal and polishing, then pop it off the hammer. Important side note: Don't do a test-fit before taking the burr off, or else you'll slice the skin on your finger all the way 'round in a very nice ring-shaped pattern and it will be the absolute dickens to try and get it off. Maybe don't ask me how I know...
- michaelrpeskin 2y ago
  I did a similar thing using some titanium out of the scrap bin. (Yes, I know that it will be nearly impossibly to cut off in an emergency, but we just take them off before we go climb or do other dangerous stuff.) It’s been 15 years and they still look great. I left the tool marks on them, I liked how it looked like it was machined.
  - generalizations 2y ago
    FYI, only time I've known of a ring being cut off was due to a bee sting on the finger, causing it to swell.
    - niloc132 2y ago
      Another anecdote for your collection: my father fell off a ladder last year - not far enough to sustain any injury, but far enough to catch his ring slightly in trying to regain his balance. Finger ended up swelling enough that the ring was a problem, ended up having to be cut off. I wouldn’t have imagined that a fall off of the second step of a ladder could result in the destruction of a 40 year old wedding ring either, but here we are!
wakawaka28 2y ago
For most simple designs, you should forge the ring and solder it closed instead of casting. Casting would be more appropriate for detailed designs that you don't have time to carve or hammer out.
- ggreer 2y ago
  Yeah, hindsight is 20/20. As my blog post mentions at the end, I had no trouble forging a gold ring. Though instead of using solder, I melted the ends together as I wanted the entire ring to remain pure gold. Had I wanted a faceted hammered look from the start, I probably would have skipped the casting step entirely.
  - bsder 2y ago
    Weren't most of your issues because you didn't use a centrifugal caster? DIY aesthetic is nice, but sometimes there are good reasons why a specific tool exists.
    - ggreer 2y ago
      I wasn't sure if centrifugal casting would solve the issue with oxygen bubbles, and since I already had a vacuum pump, I figured I'd try vacuum casting. The main issue was that I had problems getting a good seal because I made the device myself instead of buying a vacuum casting machine. Also I could have skipped the issue of inconsistent metal temperatures by replacing my torch with an electric melting furnace.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    I'm surprised you were able to fuse the gold. In any case, you would use a tiny amount of gold solder to make the ring, perhaps before finishing the hammering. Also, pure gold is commonly considered too soft for jewelry. It will scratch and ding easily. You should use 22k or lower, with the balance being copper and/or silver. You can easily buy a great alloy so I wouldn't attempt to make one myself, unless the financial savings were amazing.
groby_b 2y ago
Nice! fwiw, people usually don't use a silver/gold alloy not because of cost, but because of hardness. But then, I like that for a wedding ring, it'll collect a few marks on the way - and that too is like a relationship.
rjsw 2y ago
My childhood dentist made several wedding rings, he had all the equipment to cast gold for tooth crowns.
- teruakohatu 2y ago
  He also removed crowns that had gold in them? Sounds like jewellery is a good dental side hustle!
filipezf 2y ago
I have a cute somewhat related story. I wanted to make really unique rings, so I decided to make them from some random metal from the forgotten realms of the periodic table. I asked for a site that sells many rings of many different metals, with no luck. THIS metal, it turns out, is really difficult to cast. After many months with the idea shelved, one day my girlfriend found some chinese company that managed to do them. US$ 2k rings, and ugly as hell... but at least unique! The girlfriend soon left me, but, well at least I still had the rings... until a few weeks ago when I noticed that I lost them too. C'est la vie :-)
- ggreer 2y ago
  What metal were the rings made of? When researching for this project, I did look up the densest metal possible: Osmium. Osmium has density of 22.59g/cm^3, which is 17% greater than gold's 19.28g/cm^3. (For comparison, lead is 11.34g/cm^3 and silver is 10.5g/cm^3.) Sadly Osmium melts at 5500ºF and can form toxic vapors, so making a ring out of it would be impractical.
  - bastawhiz 2y ago
    Gold is 19.32, tungsten is 19.28.
    - ggreer 2y ago
      I just used the numbers from Wikipedia, which says that gold is 19.283g/cm3 and tungsten is 19.254g/cm3. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    Iridium has almost the same density as osmium (indistinguishable without precise instruments) and unlike osmium or rhenium it is neither toxic nor radioactive (even platinum is very slightly radioactive). So iridium would be the safest among the densest metals for contact with human skin. Unfortunately, not only iridium is very expensive, but it is extremely difficult to shape, being much harder and much less ductile than platinum (and its melting point is also much higher). Platinum-iridium alloys are much easier to shape than pure iridium, but still much more difficult than pure platinum. In the second half of the 19th century, when new standard meters and kilograms were made for distribution in all countries and to replace the original standards made of pure platinum, an alloy of platinum with 10% iridium was chosen, as the most resistant metal to mechanical and chemical degradation that was known at that time but for which it was still possible to process it into a given size and shape.
linsomniac 2y ago
If you are going to get rings, for the love of humanity consider getting moissanite instead of diamond. Diamonds aren't worth what you have to pay for them (try re-selling a diamond), and have a long history of BS associated with them. If you are doing it because of the long history of giving diamonds, remember that the popularity of giving diamond engagement rings is younger than either US presidential candidate. :-)
- fortran77 2y ago
  This was an article about wedding bands; solid bands of one material without precious stones.
  - linsomniac 2y ago
    I realize that, but much of the discussion here has mentioned engagement rings so I thought I'd chime in. I ended up getting my wife two engagement rings and one band, one was a diamond that was from her grandmother, the other was a moissanite stone in a low-snag setting which would be easier for her to wear under gloves at work.
- RandallBrown 2y ago
  It seems as if diamond engagement rings became fashionable in the renaissance, even if it was only something nobility could afford.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago
  > Diamonds aren't worth what you have to pay for them (try re-selling a diamond) If you buy a complete ring, you're usually getting quite ripped off. But if you buy a stone, complete with its certificate, it shall be worth what the market says it is worth. Competent jewelers will have no problem with you coming with a stone you bought or with an old family heirloom stone and put it on the ring you want: you'll pay his hours and the material for the ring but that's it. And the stone is worth its market price. Diamonds above a certain size (whether they're natural or synthetic) are engraved now. You keep the certificate and you'll be able to resell it. You can buy synthetic diamonds, they're cheaper than natural ones. And there's also a market for these. Note that I'm not saying that the market ain't going down. What I'm saying is that you can definitely buy a stone at its market price and resell it at its market price. That's how the markets do work: be it stocks, gold or diamonds.
eludwig 2y ago
As others have mentioned, a centrifugal casting machine would have really helped here. I took quite a bit of jewelry making in college and all the lost wax casting we did was done this way. The force of the metal filling the mold at extremely high speeds gets rid of most, if not all, of the impurities/inconsistencies. Wind up the machine, melt the metal in a small crucible, drop the pin and duck (lol). I was once sprayed by a small stream of molten brass at +/- 1700 degrees (poor mold with thin wall, later fixed and recast) and still have a scar 40 years later to prove it.
- hakfoo 2y ago
  If you can find a dental lab, the sort that makes crowns and bridges, they'll have this infrastructure, or at least they used to in the 2000s and before. My father worked at such a lab, and occasionally the dentists who owned it would ask him to cast wedding rings (no doubt made from the scrap gold leftover from regular work).
agg23 2y ago
I custom designed a ring for my then girlfriend and sent it to Shapeways to have a mold 3D printed, then cast in silver. It turned out quite well (other than us having sizing issues). You can see my progress pictures here: https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/6292xd/i_designed_and_3d_printed_my_fianc%C3%A9es_engagement/ https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/6292xd/i_design... ---- Now, 8 years later, I'm really wishing I had designed my own ring. I would prefer to avoid the cliche metals (silver, gold, platinum), and I can't wear silver anyway (allergic). I would really like to find an interesting or unusual metal (scientifically or just in general) that isn't going to cause issues due to its hardness if my finger swells (titanium or tungsten are very difficult to cut off in those situations). Does anyone have any material suggestions?
- BobAliceInATree 2y ago
  Rhodium? It’s used to plate white-gold to make it extra bright (unplated white gold tends to have a yellow tinge). It would be super expensive though. edit: on second look, seems it’s too brittle
- adrian_b 2y ago
  Niobium a.k.a. columbium is very safe for allergies (like titanium, its surface is automatically protected by an invisible but very resistant oxide layer). It has an interesting history, being one of the few metals (except the rare-earth metals) that have been discovered only after the beginning of the 19th century, in a mineral first found in USA. However, it is not much softer than titanium or tungsten. Even so, it is quite frequently used for rings, piercings or medical implants with minimum health risks. No metal suitable for contact with skin is as soft as silver and gold. For any ring made of another metal than these 2 you may need to go to a professional to cut it, if the ring cannot be taken out even with the help of some lubricant.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >isn't going to cause issues due to its hardness if my finger swells (titanium or tungsten are very difficult to cut off in those situations). You're overlooking a huge benefit to a titanium ring: if you're trapped in an undersea mining rig that's flooding and the automatic door in front of you is closing, you can stop the door using your ring.
GrantMoyer 2y ago
My wife and I cast our own wedding bands too. She mentioned the idea of casting our own rings, and I remembered my friend happened to have made his own small foundry — a concrete lined paint can with some pipe and 10$ hair drier as bellows — a couple of years prior. We bought some sand casting equipment and a thermometer and went over to his house. He had only ever used the foundry to melt aluminum, so we weren't sure it'd get hot enough to melt gold. We stuffed it with anthracite coal from a big bag he managed to get from a hardware store a while back, and sure enough, it got plenty hot enough. That 10$ hair drier really pulled its weight too, surviving hours upon hours of continuous use. Before we bought any gold though, we did some test casts in aluminum. My wife, I, and a couple of friends melted down some cans, formed our sand molds with some cheap steel model rings, and cast some pretty bad rings. They weren't even rings, really, since they didn't even form full circles. But after a few more tries, we figured out better places to put air channels, how to pour the metal better, etc. and came out with some decent aluminum rings. We also cast some other trinkets like some dice and a little darth vader figurine. More confident we'd be able to successfully cast gold rings, we ordered some 14k casting grain. When it arrived, we headed back to my friends house, cast some more aluminum trinkets to warm up, then my wife and I cast each others rings with only one small mishap; luckily gold can is easily re-melted. Breaking apart the sand molds to reveal the results was a tense moment, but they came out great. We also opted for hammer finishes, and we're both very happy with the result. They have some small pockets on the surface, and we overestimated how much the rings would shrink, so mine's a little too big and I wear it on my middle finger, but we think of the defects as reminders we cast them ourselves. The end result wasn't the point anyway; if we wanted perfect rings we would have just bought some. The point was the experience of making them, and it sounds like the author had the same kind of experience, so I'm glad for him.
timzaman 2y ago
If you make a ring as simple like this, just sandcast it. I also think the imperfections in these one-off rings are highly desirable, and emphasise the fact that it's unique.
- interludead 2y ago
  Imperfections as signs of uniqueness is a beautiful perspective
beacon294 2y ago
That's nice. I did something similar. By the deadline, I ended up just having shapeways cast my STL files. Ring is very nice, even if I merely designed it in OpenSCAD. I did manage several failed castings.
- gertlex 2y ago
  I also used shapeways and CAD (Solidworks). Printed a steel one first (cheapest metal), then iterated and did a brass one, finally a silver one. I got a spare silver one made as well. Then I did a wrap of unidirectional carbon fiber around the ring in a designed-in groove. Wrapped some 1" ID silicone tubing around the ring, held in place by a cable tie, and stuck it in the oven at 300 for an hour. Carefully trimmed the carbon fiber edges with a razor blade for a hour or two. Ring's still going good after 6 years :D
  - beacon294 2y ago
    That's great! They will also print in gold if you ever want to upgrade. I had a backup printed recently, after 7 years, and it's exactly the same as the original. I was worried about process changes or tolerance issues, but had none.
    - gertlex 2y ago
      In this case, I really like the silver/black contrast. I actually had a prototype pinky ring for years that was just aluminum and carbon fiber (lathe-made). The aluminum is whiter/less shiny, so an even starker contrast. (I really need to pull together pictures of the process/design some day...)
MezzoDelCammin 2y ago
I'm saving this under "for later use", "things to do when I grow a moustache" and "Ron Swanson / Nick Offerman reenactment" [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NPKOGqXKLq4 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NPKOGqXKLq4
specproc 2y ago
Great project. Nowhere near as involved, but I've recently gotten into designing jewelry. There are some guys in my town who'll run up and cast prints, I just need to make the design. Got me some big husband points one recent anniversary with that.
55555 2y ago
There is no reason to use casting to make a ring that looks like the ring in the OP. Pour the metal into an ingot, heat and hammer it (like a blacksmith would) into a long bar. Then heat and bend it into a circle/ring, an then use flux to solder it into one piece which eats its own tail. (Yes I've done this, several times.)
- gertlex 2y ago
  > Knowing what I know now, I probably could have made these rings without casting. I could have heated up the metal, hammered it into shape, reheated to undo the work hardening, and repeated that process until I had the ring I desired. In fact I did so with the extra gold: From the article. But I understand, you wanted to do your own thing (this dismissive comment of yours) for no reason. :)
  - 55555 2y ago
    How was it dismissive? I meant it to be instructive, in case others want to make a simple ring. It’s a surprisingly accessible hobby and making a simple ring is easy. It’s the standard introductory class people with no experience do and they leave with a ring of their own making two hours later.
COGlory 2y ago
My father makes fake teeth, so for my wedding, and also my sister's wedding, he cast the rings out of old gold scraps he had lying around. It's maybe the one possession I have that I'm extremely sentimental about.
- interludead 2y ago
  That's incredibly unique. A profound layer of family connection and heritage to these symbols of love.
farceSpherule 2y ago
"this project took me six weekends over three months and cost around $3,500" Your materials cost was $3,500. What is your time worth per hour times the number of hours spent? Then we will have a more accurate estimate of total cost.
- sowbug 2y ago
  Be sure to include the time spent building the relationship that led to the engagement!
- hnbad 2y ago
  Sure, make sure to also include the time spent shopping around for wedding rings when calculating the TCO of bought rings for comparison.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  Unless you were otherwise going to use that time to make money (which most people wouldn't be), your time is worth $0/hr.
Modified3019 2y ago
Binged a bunch of ring repair/modification videos a while back, it’s fascinating stuff. It’ll look horrible for 90% of the process and right at then end suddenly change into being amazing.
zokier 2y ago
> Since the rings are made entirely of noble metals, they’ll never corrode Just fyi, silver certainly can corrode, it is not quite as non-reactive as platinum group and gold. So don't go dunking your nice ring into acids etc, and salt water can be bad too.
sanitycheck 2y ago
The vacuum is not necessary here, something this simple is achievable with sand casting (search for "Delft Clay") and a bit of practice. Ensure the sprue is wide enough and air channels are plentiful, make sure the metal is as hot as it's possible to get it, and pour swiftly in one fluid motion. The snag is that you need about 3X your desired weight in metal, which in gold is... probably more expensive than the vacuum casting setup! So maybe the above applies mainly to silver unless there's a good use for the rest of the gold.
- ryaan_anthony 2y ago
  this is what i did! it cost me less than 100 bucks in supplies and just under 2k in various gold (14k-18k) i bought on ebay. i mixed in enough 24k to bring it up to 42 grams of 18k. i cast two sets of rings (11g + 2g) and had some leftover gold to recast into grains to share with our parents and future children.
- BobAliceInATree 2y ago
  I assume you could just sell the leftover gold for most of what you paid for it.
interludead 2y ago
A wonderful and meaningful idea. The sentimental value of self-made wedding rings is immense.
mandeepj 2y ago
> But I knew that jewelers are not magicians. No one is! Magicians are just tricksters; they get copied all the time.
benmos 2y ago
Hope it’s permissible for me to post this… but if you’re looking to do this in the UK, these guys are great: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PtJpTBpkiDBSzFki7?g_st=ic https://maps.app.goo.gl/PtJpTBpkiDBSzFki7?g_st=ic
THENATHE 2y ago
If anyone else wants to do this, coin silver is nominally cheaper and is significantly more durable, and about as easy to melt. I view things like a furnace or nice blowtorch as an investment into future projects that may otherwise not even be viable (in my mind) without the knowledge that I have said tool, so a small furnace for melting, while being more expensive, might expedite the process or increase quality, while also opening doors to future potential endeavors.
dumah 2y ago
On Naval deployments, it’s common for mechanics, who are planning on proposing or are engaged, to file nuts into pairs of wedding bands. This can take weeks or months, depending on the material and method. Since there are nuts available from peculiar corrosion-resistant alloys and superalloys, the product can be quite unique.

300 points by robenkleene 2y ago

When I was getting married a few years ago I started down this path as well. However I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to get the quality I wanted so I ended up finding someone who would be able to 3d print and cast my design. There are casting houses out in LA that will accept a STL file and will 3d print, cast, and finish your ring for you. The price is very reasonable, just labor and a bit of a premium on top of the spot gold price. Using that experience I ended up starting a side business where I sell custom designed jewelry. My most popular design incorporates my customer's fingerprints. I build a pipeline that lets me go from a jpeg or other image file of the fingerprint to a fully 3d printable STL file (mostly using the blender python API). Because there are so many casting houses in LA they compete to keep the prices down. My completely custom rings that I have cast in small batches (compared to the large chains), are still very cost competitive with the competition.

dylan604 2y ago
Has anyone including you stopped to think of the security implications of of making a thumbprint jewelry like this?
- meatmanek 2y ago
  You leak your fingerprints every time you touch a smooth surface; one extra copy on an unlikely-to-be-lost item doesn't really increase your risk much.
- sunshinesnacks 2y ago
  I never wear my rings places where I don’t also bring my fingers, and rings don’t leave oily prints like my fingers do. Sarcasm aside, I’m not sure how this is a security risk.
  - fbdab103 2y ago
    In 2014[0], someone stole the German Defense Minister's fingerprint from a picture. We are well past the point where you can assume your biometrics are secure. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2014/12/29/german_minister_fingered_as_hackers_steal_her_thumbprint_from_a_photo/ https://www.theregister.com/2014/12/29/german_minister_finge...
  - dylan604 2y ago
    I guess you can go ahead and take "criminal mastermind" from your CV! Why would I think that a physical 3D object with the pattern of my fingerprint that can be carried around and held up to anything might possibly be a security issue? Nope, I can't think of anything...
    - krisoft 2y ago
      > I guess you can go ahead and take "criminal mastermind" from your CV! Careful, your sarcasm is dripping! > Why would I think that a physical 3D object with the pattern of my fingerprint that can be carried around and held up to anything might possibly be a security issue? Have you looked at the image of the ring? How do you plan to scan that anywhere?
0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Do you have an image? I am struggling to imagine how/where you squeeze in a fingerprint unless it is really scaled down or some kind of wrap around the band. Are the grooves deeply etched? Or coated with some kind of protective layer? I imagine a few years of friction would rub away the finer details.
- doctoboggan 2y ago
  Sure, here is an image: https://lulimjewelry.com/cdn/shop/products/fingerprint-closeup.jpg https://lulimjewelry.com/cdn/shop/products/fingerprint-close... The grooves are cast quite deeply. I don’t anticipate any problems and I’ve been wearing mine for 7 years.

zachthewf 2y ago

We had a great experience doing this in a much less hardcore way through this company: https://withtheseringshandmade.com/ https://withtheseringshandmade.com/ I'd recommend to anyone who is interested but does not have the skills to make a ring on your own. Great weekend trip from Seattle too.

cactusplant7374 2y ago
How much did you end up paying?
- zachthewf 2y ago
  I don't remember exactly, but somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000.
ygra 2y ago
We did something like that as well. Cost was comparable to just buying rings (most of that was the gold, anyway). We started with a blank strip of metal with the correct cross-section, which was first bent, then soldered together, then sized appropriately and polished. Was a fun day.

Bluestein 2y ago

> I’m reminded of the trial and error, the mistakes, the frustrations, the determination to keep working through problems, and the eventual beautiful success. > Hmm. That almost sounds like a relationship. Best bit.- Wishing them all success.-

themadturk 2y ago

My wife's father was a gemologist and metalsmith. When we got married 42 years ago, he made both of our wedding rings -- lost wax casting, of course, since 3D printing wasn't a thing. Mine is a plain rose gold band, hers is antiqued gold leaves surround a diamond (he was an experienced gem faceter, but would not touch diamonds, which he'd rarely worked with, so ours came from a diamond dealer). He had me pour the gold for both rings. It's nice to have a story to go with them!

gregschlom 2y ago
> lost wax casting, of course, since 3D printing wasn't a thing Just to nitpick, even with 3D printing these days, the process is still called lost wax casting. The printer prints a wax version of the model, and then the plaster is poured around it to make a mold and the wax model is melted out. The only difference is that the wax model is made by a 3d printer rather than by hand.
- ortusdux 2y ago
  There are burnout printer filaments and resins as well, so I've heard it referred as 'lost plastic' casting https://helpcenter.phrozen3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/6325283749529-Burnout-schedules-for-Phrozen-Castable-Resin https://helpcenter.phrozen3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/632528374...
- alvah 2y ago
  To nitpick your nitpick, lost PLA casting is most definitely a thing; no wax required.
- willcipriano 2y ago
  I've seen: 3d print a part (resin printer), make a mold from the 3d printed part with modeling clay or whatever, cast wax in the mold and then sand cast metal with the wax casting. I think the 3d printed part wouldn't burn away as cleanly as the wax that is designed for that purpose. Probably faster if you want more than one as well.

gregschlom 2y ago

This is cool but for people without access to all the tools, a much easier way is to just upload your design to Shapeways.com and let them take care of all the casting. (https://www.shapeways.com/materials/gold https://www.shapeways.com/materials/gold) You can also have your design done in brass first for relatively cheap, to validate the design. I made our wedding rings that way, as well as quite a bit of jewelry over the years for my spouse. (pendants, earrings, etc...)

hooverd 2y ago
Unfortunately... https://hackaday.com/2024/07/04/shapeways-files-for-bankruptcy/ https://hackaday.com/2024/07/04/shapeways-files-for-bankrupt... You wouldn't guess it from their website at the moment though.
agg23 2y ago
I did this with silver (see my other comment) and it was a great experience. I was very sad to hear Shapeways is shutting down.

mauvehaus 2y ago

A couple fun facts about casting metals: Many of them shrink when they solidify. For the size and tolerances needed for a ring you can probably ignore this detail. You can get what is called a low-shrink mold made for some alloys that helps mitigate this if you want to make your prototype to finished size (or you didn't know better before you takes to the jeweler). Patternmakers deal with this using what are called shrink rules. They look like regular rules, but are e.g. 5% longer. If you're buying an old rule, make sure you don't get one by mistake. Silver rings, worn regularly, won't need to be polished to keep the tarnish at bay; the contact from your skin will do quite well enough. Our wedding rings are also silver, and I've only polished mine when I haven't worn it for a while. Ours probably don't polish up to quite the same luster though. They're a regular alloy of silver for jewelry and not silver and gold.

ggreer 2y ago
I was worried about the metal shrinking, but I only had to increase the size of my prints by 1.6% to get the desired ring size. eg: The PLA ring had an inner diameter of 16.8mm and the casting had a diameter of 16.5mm. Thanks for the info about the lack of tarnish. I'm glad I won't have to do much maintenance.
- mauvehaus 2y ago
  Since you cast this a few times, I have to ask: did you determine the shrink ratio empirically or were you able to look it up? This is a super cool project, and I'm impressed that you got it done before the wedding!
  - ggreer 2y ago
    I looked around online and answers ranged from no shrinkage to 6%. For my first attempt I split the difference (3%), then measured the actual diameter with calipers. Also I tended to err on the side of making the ring too small, as it’s pretty easy to remove material from the inside of the ring.
Lev1a 2y ago

ulysses1244 2y ago

I am in the process of doing this as well, but I’m trying to stay on a tight budget. After 10 failures and different trials, this is my rough process: - Melt fine silver with a butane torch - Pour it into a circle mold with a metal rod in the middle (makeshift ring mold). I tried sand casting with a wax mold but couldn’t keep the metal hot enough to fill the chamber. - Hammer the ring on metal ring mandrel to shape and increase the size. This took probably 5,000 light hits with a metal hammer, periodically annealing. - Use a dremel and grinding stone to further shape it - Sand and polish by hand Since I shaped it with a metal hammer, it has a really nice and natural hammer finish that I plan to keep. I’m considering trying to electroplate it in palladium since the fine silver will tarnish and scratch over time, but it’ll be harder to fix inevitable mistakes.

ggreer 2y ago
How did you deal with the molten silver dissolving oxygen from the atmosphere? Even if you keep it under a reducing flame, you'll have to take the flame off eventually and some O2 will get in, which will cause defects as the metal solidifies.
- bigiain 2y ago
  I wonder if using the gas shroud from a mig/tig welder might work?
- ulysses1244 2y ago
  Yes this definitely happens to an extent. I mostly solved it by grinding away the outside. I used 2x the amount of silver that I ultimately needed, knowing I’d have to remove some. I’m figuring it out as I go, but it doesn’t seem to be a major issue.

HanClinto 2y ago

Excellent post! Excellent problem-solving, and very nice result!! Taking a completely direction, my wife and I made our own wedding rings out of stainless steel (a low-nickel alloy suitable for contact with skin -- 316L, I think), and we milled them on a lathe in my employer's machine shop after hours. Nearly 20 years later, and they have held up remarkably well. If you're going to lathe a ring, make sure you do as much shaping and polishing before you detach it from the rest of the rod, and then create a mandrel that is the correct size to hold the ring (using friction) from the other direction. Hammer it onto the mandrel, do your final burr-removal and polishing, then pop it off the hammer. Important side note: Don't do a test-fit before taking the burr off, or else you'll slice the skin on your finger all the way 'round in a very nice ring-shaped pattern and it will be the absolute dickens to try and get it off. Maybe don't ask me how I know...

michaelrpeskin 2y ago
I did a similar thing using some titanium out of the scrap bin. (Yes, I know that it will be nearly impossibly to cut off in an emergency, but we just take them off before we go climb or do other dangerous stuff.) It’s been 15 years and they still look great. I left the tool marks on them, I liked how it looked like it was machined.
- generalizations 2y ago
  FYI, only time I've known of a ring being cut off was due to a bee sting on the finger, causing it to swell.
  - niloc132 2y ago
    Another anecdote for your collection: my father fell off a ladder last year - not far enough to sustain any injury, but far enough to catch his ring slightly in trying to regain his balance. Finger ended up swelling enough that the ring was a problem, ended up having to be cut off. I wouldn’t have imagined that a fall off of the second step of a ladder could result in the destruction of a 40 year old wedding ring either, but here we are!

wakawaka28 2y ago

For most simple designs, you should forge the ring and solder it closed instead of casting. Casting would be more appropriate for detailed designs that you don't have time to carve or hammer out.

ggreer 2y ago
Yeah, hindsight is 20/20. As my blog post mentions at the end, I had no trouble forging a gold ring. Though instead of using solder, I melted the ends together as I wanted the entire ring to remain pure gold. Had I wanted a faceted hammered look from the start, I probably would have skipped the casting step entirely.
- bsder 2y ago
  Weren't most of your issues because you didn't use a centrifugal caster? DIY aesthetic is nice, but sometimes there are good reasons why a specific tool exists.
  - ggreer 2y ago
    I wasn't sure if centrifugal casting would solve the issue with oxygen bubbles, and since I already had a vacuum pump, I figured I'd try vacuum casting. The main issue was that I had problems getting a good seal because I made the device myself instead of buying a vacuum casting machine. Also I could have skipped the issue of inconsistent metal temperatures by replacing my torch with an electric melting furnace.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  I'm surprised you were able to fuse the gold. In any case, you would use a tiny amount of gold solder to make the ring, perhaps before finishing the hammering. Also, pure gold is commonly considered too soft for jewelry. It will scratch and ding easily. You should use 22k or lower, with the balance being copper and/or silver. You can easily buy a great alloy so I wouldn't attempt to make one myself, unless the financial savings were amazing.

groby_b 2y ago

Nice! fwiw, people usually don't use a silver/gold alloy not because of cost, but because of hardness. But then, I like that for a wedding ring, it'll collect a few marks on the way - and that too is like a relationship.

rjsw 2y ago

My childhood dentist made several wedding rings, he had all the equipment to cast gold for tooth crowns.

teruakohatu 2y ago
He also removed crowns that had gold in them? Sounds like jewellery is a good dental side hustle!

filipezf 2y ago

I have a cute somewhat related story. I wanted to make really unique rings, so I decided to make them from some random metal from the forgotten realms of the periodic table. I asked for a site that sells many rings of many different metals, with no luck. THIS metal, it turns out, is really difficult to cast. After many months with the idea shelved, one day my girlfriend found some chinese company that managed to do them. US$ 2k rings, and ugly as hell... but at least unique! The girlfriend soon left me, but, well at least I still had the rings... until a few weeks ago when I noticed that I lost them too. C'est la vie :-)

ggreer 2y ago
What metal were the rings made of? When researching for this project, I did look up the densest metal possible: Osmium. Osmium has density of 22.59g/cm^3, which is 17% greater than gold's 19.28g/cm^3. (For comparison, lead is 11.34g/cm^3 and silver is 10.5g/cm^3.) Sadly Osmium melts at 5500ºF and can form toxic vapors, so making a ring out of it would be impractical.
- bastawhiz 2y ago
  Gold is 19.32, tungsten is 19.28.
  - ggreer 2y ago
    I just used the numbers from Wikipedia, which says that gold is 19.283g/cm3 and tungsten is 19.254g/cm3. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten
- adrian_b 2y ago
  Iridium has almost the same density as osmium (indistinguishable without precise instruments) and unlike osmium or rhenium it is neither toxic nor radioactive (even platinum is very slightly radioactive). So iridium would be the safest among the densest metals for contact with human skin. Unfortunately, not only iridium is very expensive, but it is extremely difficult to shape, being much harder and much less ductile than platinum (and its melting point is also much higher). Platinum-iridium alloys are much easier to shape than pure iridium, but still much more difficult than pure platinum. In the second half of the 19th century, when new standard meters and kilograms were made for distribution in all countries and to replace the original standards made of pure platinum, an alloy of platinum with 10% iridium was chosen, as the most resistant metal to mechanical and chemical degradation that was known at that time but for which it was still possible to process it into a given size and shape.

linsomniac 2y ago

If you are going to get rings, for the love of humanity consider getting moissanite instead of diamond. Diamonds aren't worth what you have to pay for them (try re-selling a diamond), and have a long history of BS associated with them. If you are doing it because of the long history of giving diamonds, remember that the popularity of giving diamond engagement rings is younger than either US presidential candidate. :-)

fortran77 2y ago
This was an article about wedding bands; solid bands of one material without precious stones.
- linsomniac 2y ago
  I realize that, but much of the discussion here has mentioned engagement rings so I thought I'd chime in. I ended up getting my wife two engagement rings and one band, one was a diamond that was from her grandmother, the other was a moissanite stone in a low-snag setting which would be easier for her to wear under gloves at work.
RandallBrown 2y ago
It seems as if diamond engagement rings became fashionable in the renaissance, even if it was only something nobility could afford.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
> Diamonds aren't worth what you have to pay for them (try re-selling a diamond) If you buy a complete ring, you're usually getting quite ripped off. But if you buy a stone, complete with its certificate, it shall be worth what the market says it is worth. Competent jewelers will have no problem with you coming with a stone you bought or with an old family heirloom stone and put it on the ring you want: you'll pay his hours and the material for the ring but that's it. And the stone is worth its market price. Diamonds above a certain size (whether they're natural or synthetic) are engraved now. You keep the certificate and you'll be able to resell it. You can buy synthetic diamonds, they're cheaper than natural ones. And there's also a market for these. Note that I'm not saying that the market ain't going down. What I'm saying is that you can definitely buy a stone at its market price and resell it at its market price. That's how the markets do work: be it stocks, gold or diamonds.

eludwig 2y ago

As others have mentioned, a centrifugal casting machine would have really helped here. I took quite a bit of jewelry making in college and all the lost wax casting we did was done this way. The force of the metal filling the mold at extremely high speeds gets rid of most, if not all, of the impurities/inconsistencies. Wind up the machine, melt the metal in a small crucible, drop the pin and duck (lol). I was once sprayed by a small stream of molten brass at +/- 1700 degrees (poor mold with thin wall, later fixed and recast) and still have a scar 40 years later to prove it.

hakfoo 2y ago
If you can find a dental lab, the sort that makes crowns and bridges, they'll have this infrastructure, or at least they used to in the 2000s and before. My father worked at such a lab, and occasionally the dentists who owned it would ask him to cast wedding rings (no doubt made from the scrap gold leftover from regular work).

agg23 2y ago

I custom designed a ring for my then girlfriend and sent it to Shapeways to have a mold 3D printed, then cast in silver. It turned out quite well (other than us having sizing issues). You can see my progress pictures here: https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/6292xd/i_designed_and_3d_printed_my_fianc%C3%A9es_engagement/ https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/6292xd/i_design... ---- Now, 8 years later, I'm really wishing I had designed my own ring. I would prefer to avoid the cliche metals (silver, gold, platinum), and I can't wear silver anyway (allergic). I would really like to find an interesting or unusual metal (scientifically or just in general) that isn't going to cause issues due to its hardness if my finger swells (titanium or tungsten are very difficult to cut off in those situations). Does anyone have any material suggestions?

BobAliceInATree 2y ago
Rhodium? It’s used to plate white-gold to make it extra bright (unplated white gold tends to have a yellow tinge). It would be super expensive though. edit: on second look, seems it’s too brittle
adrian_b 2y ago
Niobium a.k.a. columbium is very safe for allergies (like titanium, its surface is automatically protected by an invisible but very resistant oxide layer). It has an interesting history, being one of the few metals (except the rare-earth metals) that have been discovered only after the beginning of the 19th century, in a mineral first found in USA. However, it is not much softer than titanium or tungsten. Even so, it is quite frequently used for rings, piercings or medical implants with minimum health risks. No metal suitable for contact with skin is as soft as silver and gold. For any ring made of another metal than these 2 you may need to go to a professional to cut it, if the ring cannot be taken out even with the help of some lubricant.
shiroiushi 2y ago
>isn't going to cause issues due to its hardness if my finger swells (titanium or tungsten are very difficult to cut off in those situations). You're overlooking a huge benefit to a titanium ring: if you're trapped in an undersea mining rig that's flooding and the automatic door in front of you is closing, you can stop the door using your ring.

GrantMoyer 2y ago

My wife and I cast our own wedding bands too. She mentioned the idea of casting our own rings, and I remembered my friend happened to have made his own small foundry — a concrete lined paint can with some pipe and 10$ hair drier as bellows — a couple of years prior. We bought some sand casting equipment and a thermometer and went over to his house. He had only ever used the foundry to melt aluminum, so we weren't sure it'd get hot enough to melt gold. We stuffed it with anthracite coal from a big bag he managed to get from a hardware store a while back, and sure enough, it got plenty hot enough. That 10$ hair drier really pulled its weight too, surviving hours upon hours of continuous use. Before we bought any gold though, we did some test casts in aluminum. My wife, I, and a couple of friends melted down some cans, formed our sand molds with some cheap steel model rings, and cast some pretty bad rings. They weren't even rings, really, since they didn't even form full circles. But after a few more tries, we figured out better places to put air channels, how to pour the metal better, etc. and came out with some decent aluminum rings. We also cast some other trinkets like some dice and a little darth vader figurine. More confident we'd be able to successfully cast gold rings, we ordered some 14k casting grain. When it arrived, we headed back to my friends house, cast some more aluminum trinkets to warm up, then my wife and I cast each others rings with only one small mishap; luckily gold can is easily re-melted. Breaking apart the sand molds to reveal the results was a tense moment, but they came out great. We also opted for hammer finishes, and we're both very happy with the result. They have some small pockets on the surface, and we overestimated how much the rings would shrink, so mine's a little too big and I wear it on my middle finger, but we think of the defects as reminders we cast them ourselves. The end result wasn't the point anyway; if we wanted perfect rings we would have just bought some. The point was the experience of making them, and it sounds like the author had the same kind of experience, so I'm glad for him.

timzaman 2y ago

If you make a ring as simple like this, just sandcast it. I also think the imperfections in these one-off rings are highly desirable, and emphasise the fact that it's unique.

interludead 2y ago
Imperfections as signs of uniqueness is a beautiful perspective

beacon294 2y ago

That's nice. I did something similar. By the deadline, I ended up just having shapeways cast my STL files. Ring is very nice, even if I merely designed it in OpenSCAD. I did manage several failed castings.

gertlex 2y ago
I also used shapeways and CAD (Solidworks). Printed a steel one first (cheapest metal), then iterated and did a brass one, finally a silver one. I got a spare silver one made as well. Then I did a wrap of unidirectional carbon fiber around the ring in a designed-in groove. Wrapped some 1" ID silicone tubing around the ring, held in place by a cable tie, and stuck it in the oven at 300 for an hour. Carefully trimmed the carbon fiber edges with a razor blade for a hour or two. Ring's still going good after 6 years :D
- beacon294 2y ago
  That's great! They will also print in gold if you ever want to upgrade. I had a backup printed recently, after 7 years, and it's exactly the same as the original. I was worried about process changes or tolerance issues, but had none.
  - gertlex 2y ago
    In this case, I really like the silver/black contrast. I actually had a prototype pinky ring for years that was just aluminum and carbon fiber (lathe-made). The aluminum is whiter/less shiny, so an even starker contrast. (I really need to pull together pictures of the process/design some day...)

MezzoDelCammin 2y ago

I'm saving this under "for later use", "things to do when I grow a moustache" and "Ron Swanson / Nick Offerman reenactment" [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NPKOGqXKLq4 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NPKOGqXKLq4

specproc 2y ago

Great project. Nowhere near as involved, but I've recently gotten into designing jewelry. There are some guys in my town who'll run up and cast prints, I just need to make the design. Got me some big husband points one recent anniversary with that.

55555 2y ago

There is no reason to use casting to make a ring that looks like the ring in the OP. Pour the metal into an ingot, heat and hammer it (like a blacksmith would) into a long bar. Then heat and bend it into a circle/ring, an then use flux to solder it into one piece which eats its own tail. (Yes I've done this, several times.)

gertlex 2y ago
> Knowing what I know now, I probably could have made these rings without casting. I could have heated up the metal, hammered it into shape, reheated to undo the work hardening, and repeated that process until I had the ring I desired. In fact I did so with the extra gold: From the article. But I understand, you wanted to do your own thing (this dismissive comment of yours) for no reason. :)
- 55555 2y ago
  How was it dismissive? I meant it to be instructive, in case others want to make a simple ring. It’s a surprisingly accessible hobby and making a simple ring is easy. It’s the standard introductory class people with no experience do and they leave with a ring of their own making two hours later.

COGlory 2y ago

My father makes fake teeth, so for my wedding, and also my sister's wedding, he cast the rings out of old gold scraps he had lying around. It's maybe the one possession I have that I'm extremely sentimental about.

interludead 2y ago
That's incredibly unique. A profound layer of family connection and heritage to these symbols of love.

farceSpherule 2y ago

"this project took me six weekends over three months and cost around $3,500" Your materials cost was $3,500. What is your time worth per hour times the number of hours spent? Then we will have a more accurate estimate of total cost.

sowbug 2y ago
Be sure to include the time spent building the relationship that led to the engagement!
hnbad 2y ago
Sure, make sure to also include the time spent shopping around for wedding rings when calculating the TCO of bought rings for comparison.
bigstrat2003 2y ago
Unless you were otherwise going to use that time to make money (which most people wouldn't be), your time is worth $0/hr.

Modified3019 2y ago

Binged a bunch of ring repair/modification videos a while back, it’s fascinating stuff. It’ll look horrible for 90% of the process and right at then end suddenly change into being amazing.

zokier 2y ago

> Since the rings are made entirely of noble metals, they’ll never corrode Just fyi, silver certainly can corrode, it is not quite as non-reactive as platinum group and gold. So don't go dunking your nice ring into acids etc, and salt water can be bad too.

sanitycheck 2y ago

The vacuum is not necessary here, something this simple is achievable with sand casting (search for "Delft Clay") and a bit of practice. Ensure the sprue is wide enough and air channels are plentiful, make sure the metal is as hot as it's possible to get it, and pour swiftly in one fluid motion. The snag is that you need about 3X your desired weight in metal, which in gold is... probably more expensive than the vacuum casting setup! So maybe the above applies mainly to silver unless there's a good use for the rest of the gold.

ryaan_anthony 2y ago
this is what i did! it cost me less than 100 bucks in supplies and just under 2k in various gold (14k-18k) i bought on ebay. i mixed in enough 24k to bring it up to 42 grams of 18k. i cast two sets of rings (11g + 2g) and had some leftover gold to recast into grains to share with our parents and future children.
BobAliceInATree 2y ago
I assume you could just sell the leftover gold for most of what you paid for it.

interludead 2y ago

A wonderful and meaningful idea. The sentimental value of self-made wedding rings is immense.

mandeepj 2y ago

> But I knew that jewelers are not magicians. No one is! Magicians are just tricksters; they get copied all the time.

benmos 2y ago

Hope it’s permissible for me to post this… but if you’re looking to do this in the UK, these guys are great: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PtJpTBpkiDBSzFki7?g_st=ic https://maps.app.goo.gl/PtJpTBpkiDBSzFki7?g_st=ic

THENATHE 2y ago

If anyone else wants to do this, coin silver is nominally cheaper and is significantly more durable, and about as easy to melt. I view things like a furnace or nice blowtorch as an investment into future projects that may otherwise not even be viable (in my mind) without the knowledge that I have said tool, so a small furnace for melting, while being more expensive, might expedite the process or increase quality, while also opening doors to future potential endeavors.

dumah 2y ago

On Naval deployments, it’s common for mechanics, who are planning on proposing or are engaged, to file nuts into pairs of wedding bands. This can take weeks or months, depending on the material and method. Since there are nuts available from peculiar corrosion-resistant alloys and superalloys, the product can be quite unique.