In this video I made a ring with sterling silver ring liner, some toxic green kirinite and this piece of dinosaur bone! Making a ring with dinosaur bone was no easy feat but the finished piece looked awesome!
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Tools and Materials
Dinosaur bone
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Sheet Silver
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Liver of Sulphur
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Bench bandsaw
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Wood lathe
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Drill Press
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Jewellers Hand Tool Kit
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Digital Caliper
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Ring Mandrel & ring sizers
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Soldering Torch
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Jewellery saw
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Half round pliers
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Bench Pin
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Jewellery Hammers
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Cutting and Annealing the Silver
I wanted this ring to be nice and chunky at 10mm wide so I took a sheet of 0.8mm silver sheet and marked a line to follow with my saw.
After lubing up the blade with a bit of beeswax my jewellery saw made quick work of cutting the strip of silver.
Before the silver could be bent to shape I needed to anneal the strip to soften the metal. I did this with my hand torch and heated the strip equally until I saw a soft glow coming off it.
Preparing for Soldering
I allowed the strip of silver to cool down before using a half round nose plyers to bend it into a rough ring shape.
To make the edges fit together nicely I cleaned them up with a file, making sure that when I was finished that no light could shine through the seam.
To clean off the oxidisation from annealing I placed the silver ring blank into a pickling solution for about 20 minutes.
I took my silver out of the pickle and dipped it in bicarb of soda to neutralise the acid and gave it a good rinse in water to ensure it was clean for soldering.
Soldering and Hammering
To solder the ring I put a bit of flux and a few pieces of silver solder over the seam of the ring and proceed to heat the silver with my hand torch.
When the ring was heated equally I focused the flame over the seam until the solder flowed into it.
I allowed the silver ring to cool down and the gave it another bath in the pickle before taking a raw hide mallet to hammer the ring to size. I just put it on a metal mandrel and hammered away until it was round and the right size.
Drilling The Dinosaur Bone
That is how I completed the silver portion of the ring and next I’ll move on to the dinosaur bone part. I’ll be using Dinosaur Gembone which is also known as Agatised Dinosaur Bone. It’s basically a fossilised piece of a dinosaur that’s been in the ground for millions of years and has been imbued with gemstones like agate, jasper and quartz. This stuff is pretty rare but makes a super cool material for a ring.
What I’m hoping to do for Ringzilla is carve out a solid piece of dinosaur bone and inlay it through the center of the ring so let’s see how it goes!
I mounted my slab of dinosaur bone in my drill press vice and bored out a large circle using a diamond drill bit.
Then I used a smaller drill bit to bore out a smaller hole inside.
Unfortunately this wasn’t the best plan and I will admit that drilling wasn’t a massive success. I actually broke the dinosaur bone, but it’s all good. With a bit of super glue I managed to get it fixed up enough to mount it on the lathe for the next step.
Cutting a Slice of Dinosaur
I marked a pencil line on the bone so I could see where to cut my slice from, then I used a diamond cutting wheel on my rotary tool to make the cuts. This stage took a while but it’s probably best not to rush these things.
The diamond cutting wheel came in handy for flattening off the edges of the bone and I used another grinding bit to make the inside diameter a little larger.
With a bit of trial and error I managed to get the bone to fit nicely onto the silver ring liner.
Making The Acrylic Elements
By far the easiest part of this project was creating the acrylic elements of the ring.
I used the same diamond drill bit to bore a hole from the acrylic block and then roughed out a ring shape on the bandsaw (being careful not the rough out my fingers in the process.
To get an idea of my ring shape I set my calipers to 3mm and scored a line using the inside diameter of the hole as a guide.
For the final shaping of the acrylic pieces I made a sanding disk mounted on a faceplate for my lathe. I stuck to my scored lines and managed to get a pretty good ring shape.
I used a marking gauge to score a line in the center of my rough acrylic ring and separated the two halves using a fine toothed razor saw.
Gluing Up
Gluing up each element was probably the most intense part of the process. I simply coated each piece with a generous amount of super glue and slotted them on one by one.
Epoxy resin would probably be a better choice of adhesive but I didn’t have any.
The ring was finally coming together and all that was left to do was final shaping and a quick polish.
Grinding
I once again used a grinding bit on my rotary tool to remove any excess material and ensure the bone was flush with the acrylic. This took a long time!
Sanding and Polishing
Next I mounted the ring on a spindle on the lathe and worked over it with progressively finer grits of sand paper to create a smooth, even finish. Again this step took a while but by the time I got to the 12,000 grit micromesh the ring was looking real nice and shiny!
To really bring the surface to a gleaming finish I turned up the speed on the lathe and used two polishing pads with Tripoli and Rouge polishing compounds. After the Rouge I could see my own reflection in the ring!
Liver of Sulphur
To clean up the silver inside of the ring I used a couple of different files and grits of emery paper. I didn’t want a mirror finish inside but I did aim to create a smooth feel with no major scratches.
Finally I dipped the ring into a liver of sulphur solution for 1 minute to oxidise the silver and give it a blackened look.
Ringzilla: Dinosaur Bone and Silver Ring
And here is the beast Ringzilla in it’s final form!
So that is it guys, that is my birthday present to myself, Ringzilla is complete. I must say I made a few mistakes along the way but I think it’s a well cool piece of jewellery. It’s definitely a conversation starter and I learned a lot from making this project.
I hope this video has inspired you to make something cool today and please if you would go and vote for me in the Instructables Jewelry contest (link is in the description)! As always, thank you for watching, see you in the next one!