FIXING a ring that was CUT OFF!

this ring got stuck on someone's finger and had to be cut off don't worry the fingers just fine but the ring not so much there's a big gouge in the gold I'll size the ring larger and give it a complete refurbish in order to get this ring fixed I'll first go back in time a little bit I'll Bend the ring back down to its original size before it was cut off this way I'll be able to start from square one part of going back to square one is soldering the ring back together I'll add some boric acid bring a flame to it add a little bit of flux and solder the ring back together technically I could skip this step altogether but in all my years of working on jewelry I've found that I like to start with a clean slate which means taking rings that have been broken soldering them back together putting them on a ring mandrel rounding them out and seeing where we're beginning at now that the ring has been rounded out I can now take it to the bench pen and just cut out that bad section remember that big gouge we talked about earlier instead of trying to just fill that with some solder or something like that I'm gonna remove it completely because the ring will need to be sized larger we might as well cut out the bad section entirely that way the new fresh piece of gold that will be adding for the ring sizing can cover all of that any time I make a cut on a ring I'll always file it after just to make sure the seam is nice and straight and flip completely unnecessary but hey even a goldsmith has to live a little I'll slide the ring down the ring mandrel and work it down eventually landing exactly where I need to be size twelve you can see the gap in the ring I'll be bridging that gap with a brand new piece of 14 karat yellow gold I'll grab my crucible and I'll fill it with some gold some fresh pieces of sizing stock a bail I'm also going to recycle this old ring 100% of the precious metals I used are recycled this is an ingot mold basically you melt down some metal and pour it down into one of the holes when the metal goes down into the mold it forms a nice cylinder shape before I pour the metal into the mold I'll first heat it up that way there's a lot less resistance when the metal goes in now it's time to melt the gold down in the crucible this is 14 karat yellow gold in order for it to melt the temperature will need to reach nearly 1600 degrees Fahrenheit [Music] it has to be one of the most satisfying parts of goldsmythe melting down gold and turning it from a solid into a liquid [Music] now that the gold is a liquid it can glide around the crucible I then bring the crucible above the ingot mold and with a gentle turn of my wrist I pour the metal down into the mold I then loosen the clamp on the mold it's time to see how this thing turned out and splat definitely a success but something a little weird is going on it almost looks like the ingot itself has roots beautiful golden almost feathery roots it actually looks pretty cool but I'm having some trouble getting it out alright come on and there we go I'll address the sealing issues of my ingot mold later but for now this will work just fine I can clip off those little feathers next I'll grab my slightly heavy rolling mill this will be used to shape the gold into the piece that I need for the ring I'll first run the gold through the largest groove in the rolling mill this will help it take a square shape I'll run it in one end and then back through the other rotating at 90 degrees each time now it's time for an important step annealing after I run the gold through the rolling mill a few times it builds up a lot of internal pressure through the annealing process the gold will become dead soft again if I were to skip this step the gold would be brittle it will eventually achieve a beautiful red glow at that point I'll take it in quench it in water now we're back at the rolling mill except this time instead of making it square we're gonna make it flat using calipers I'll measure out what the thickness and the width of the ring is that way I'll know what I need to make my new piece of gold as you can see we're almost there I just need to flatten it out a little bit more by rotating the handle at the top of the rolling mill I bring the press closer together thus putting more pressure on the gold I want to make sure that the new piece of gold is a little bit thicker and a little bit wider than the original I want to avoid thinning out the original ring I'm then going to anneal the gold one last time to make it soft quench it and then cut off the mangled end I'm then going to take some metal bending pliers I'll use these to sort of shape the gold and form it into the natural curve of a ring everything is coming along just nicely using some hammers and a ring mandrel I'm able to pound the gold into the exact curve I need I'll then take some tweezers and I'll score the lengths I need to cut in the gold I then run the saw blade directly through that line after the gold is cut a ring file is used to make sure that the line is nice and straight grabbing the ring I'll take the new piece of gold and gently drop it into place before soldering it in place I'll want to ensure that the new piece of gold is both even and centered I'll then clamp the ring and add a mixture of alcohol and boric acid to it this will help prevent fire scale like before I'll heat the ring up and add flux to the seams flux is very important because it helps the solder flow nicely on my soldering block I'll heat up a piece of 14 karat yellow gold hard solder and grab it with my solder pick I'll then bring it over to the ring drop it down on the seam and heat it up until it flows with the new piece of gold soldered in I'm now going to bring it down flush with the rest of the ring the first thing I'll do is grind out the inside the cylinder birds do the job very well using a continuous motion with my hand I'm able to slowly grind down the gold and make it flush with the rest of the ring I'll then throw the ring on the mandrel use a rawhide and round it out now I let the file do the work I first file the sides of the Ring i watch very carefully to make sure that I'm not over filing the last thing you want to do is thin out a ring it's very important to follow the curve of the ring you don't want to leave a flat spot so all file strokes must be smooth and continuous after the file has removed the bulk of the excess gold I use a sanding disc to smooth it out even more I like to finish things off at the bench by using a high grit sanding wheel this makes everything nice and smooth and ready to be taken to the final polish the very last thing I'll do is double check the size 12 on the dot the ring is then taken to the polishing machine I'm going to start with a lap a lap is perfect for making nice crisp edges on the sides of the Ring making everything nice and uniform the side of the Ring should be a nice straight edge unfortunately my battery died at this moment and I was unable to capture the rest of the polishing process which is basically just me polishing the inside of the Ring as well as buffing the outside with a big wheel you can find similar footage at the end of many of my videos now with a charged battery I drop the ring into my ultrasonic cleaner this cleans the ring and removes all of the polishing compound after some minutes I take some tongs and I fish the ring out of the basket for good measure the ring is then steam cleaned to remove any dirt and grime and here's the end result a high polished yellow gold ring that truly shines I'm super happy with the way it turned out the new piece of gold blends in quite nicely now this person gets their ring back this time with a comfortable fit [Music]

Channel: Modern Goldsmith

Views: 624,405

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Id: aX866Kx4oU8

Length: 9min 15sec (555 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 13 2020