Johanna & Jesse got married!

May 8, 2013

And I made their wedding bands.

My lovely friend Johanna got in touch with me a few weeks ago about making them, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so flattered or honored in my life.

They’re very simple bands with a pumice-stone finish that makes them look sandblasted. I had a great time making them, and they’re the first pieces I’ve made truly “from scratch” — these rings started as silver that I melted down into an ingot and rolled out into thick sheet metal. Usually, I just buy the sheet ready-made.

The Process
I don’t have pictures of the melting and rolling process…suffice to say that it involved a propane-oxygen torch that scared the crap out of me, a sheet-metal form that produced the ingot, and a lot of rolling-annealing-pickling-rolling-….until I got to 14 gauge sheet metal.

I sawed the bands out of that sheet, bent them into the recommended “potato shape” and soldered the potatoes shut. From there, I made them round on a ring mandrel and sized them to the bride and groom’s fingers…and then I realized just how bad I am at sawing in a straight line! Good thing I’d accounted for it…it just meant that I needed to spend some time with a big flat file to get the edges down before polishing.

I got a kick out of seeing how perfectly Johanna’s band fit inside Jesse’s.

Have I mentioned that pumice powder is one of my favorite things? It’s a fun mess to apply and it renders this gorgeous finish. And yes, I did a full polish to mirror shine before the pumice powder. No blemishes allowed!

Congratulations, you guys!