Is there someone who could help us or teach a class for us to be able to make our own simple silver or gold wedding bands? @nausser915 maybe? 
3 Likes
Design or lost wax, cause cad I can definitely help out but I only have personal lost wax experience I donāt have maker space certification to do casting so I canāt do that
Cad- computer aided design
1 Like
Okay, so do you mean you could help us design our rings with CAD, but wonāt be able to help with the lost wax part? Do you know of anyone else who could? What would be your suggestion as far as things we would need for this?
An alternate approach is to buy pattern wire, form it into a ring, and solder it. It can be done in a couple hours. @sroriginals has taught a class on that. I suggest you start with copper or silver as a test.
2 Likes
Cool! Do you have any pictures handy?
Pattern wire is cool and you can get some pretty cool stuff but I didnāt think you could have make a setting confidentiality enough to hold diamond or multiple, but you could always use precious metal clay, basically itās metal in clay and you mold it to what you want fire it in same fashion as ceramics and the clay burns away leaving you with the exact item carved in close to pure precious metal, I think itās like 10-15% shrinkage from the original but still a pretty easy way to make stuff out of precious meral
1 Like
I can help you with both, I just couldnāt teach a class at makersapce Iām lost wax cause I donāt have certification but I have a lot of personal experience done outside of the space
First get a block of ring black form carving wax, and some nice but not extremely exspensive carving tools and spend some time playing around with getting the design right, then after that youād just need To use heat resistant plaster with a vacuum chamber or centrifugal machine, once dry melt the wax out and pour the metal in, thatās an extremely vauge walk through but Iād just start with getting some carving wax ring blanks and a good set of tools off amazon, and go from there! And just have the mindset of the only way to ever get good at anything on earth is just to mess up over and over until you figure out how not to mess up, so just start practicing and donāt be to hard on yourself and sooner than you think youāll have a pretty cool wax ring To move to the next step with
1 Like
I can point you to the one and only ring I made that way - in Sueās class. Mine isnāt perfect, but it wasnāt bad for my first attempt.
You said āsimple bandā, and thatās what this would be.
4 Likes
Hi Rebekah! As the other members here have stated, there are many ways to make a ring. It will ultimately depend on what you want. I will PM you and we can set up a time to discuss in more detail.
6 Likes
Thank you all for your help! I have lots to think aboutā¦
If you are interested in simple bands with no stones, pattern wire is easy. There is some available in copoer, a lot available in silver, not a lot available in gold. You can check out these web sites for picturesā¦ Rio Grande, Thunderbird, Monsterslayer, and cooltools.us.
If you want a single stone, it is possible to add a head for a faceted stone or a bezel for a cabochon, bearing in mind the stone sits on top of the pattern wire, so to me it doesnāt look as integrated as a cast design. If you decide to go with a pattern wire, I can help you do the work at my house, or whenever we get classes going at Makerspace again. Email me if interested, sroriginals at earthlink.net.
1 Like
Definitely recommend getting with @nausser915. He helped me make my wifeās wedding ring and she loved it. Great guy!
edit: Added a pic to to show the end result. My first time ever making jewelry and it was painless thanks to him. Box made by me as well.
8 Likes
Hmmā¦Iāll look into that. Thank youā¦ Iām thinking white gold would be the way we want to go if we can afford it. -just concerned about longevity of life of the piece.