How to make double sided silver Morgan, Peace dollar coin rings - Tools revealed

hey guys this is Skyler from the mint change you can wear so today what we're going to be doing is making Morgan dollars into coin rings let's get started so the first thing we need to talk about when we're talking about Morgan dollar coin rings is the whole size you punch in these coins to get the ring you want I do these size 13 through size 18 and size 13 through size 16 16 and 1 12 is always going to be a 5/8 inch hole after that it goes to a 3/4 inch hole for 16 1/2 through 18 and um I used to use a half inch hole on some of the smaller ones but the ring is just too fat too bulky and it didn't look all that good so I switched to only 5/8 inch hole maybe a year or so ago so for this first ring I'm going to make I'm going to make a size 13 and the first step is to punch the hole so now we can go over the hole punching um the different ways you can do hole punching but I have a video I'm going to link below about punching your hole I'm going to opt and use the quickest easiest method which is this uh custom made punch and I'll have a video linked about the specifics on these also but for now I'm just going to go ahead and get started here just all right now we're ready to punch we're going to use for the pressure to punch this thing out is um the 6 ton Arbor press you could use a hammer if you wanted to this is really the easiest method though so you're going to be needing this for making the rest of the Ring anyway I recommend and and this is what we're going to go ahead and punch the coin out with all right that is that so now we have it punched like that now the next step is to get that punch out of there okay so the punch is out along with our scrap piece of silver which we'll go ahead and save back okay so now here we are back at the bench with this so now how do we get it out of there right some of these they'll get kind of stuck in there if it's a good snug fit like it's supposed to be so all you do is just take your punch stick it back in the other way and push it through this one came out really easy but if it didn't use a little persuasion on the back side of it it'll come right out so now we're on to annealing so what we're doing here is annealing the coin we're just softening it up and getting it ready for the forging process what we want to do is get it to a nice dull red maybe not even quite that hot and we'll be ready to go we'll quench it and move to the next step all right we're about there now P it in some water and now we are kneel and ready to go so now that we have our coin all inal it's time to start talking about some tools we're going to need to finish the forging process so what I have behind the coin here are two dyes um these dieses I have some whole whole another video on specifics of these it'll be the same video along with the hole punching specifics so I won't go too far into that but there's I have two here that I usually use when I'm making them and um I use two different sizes of ball bearings also so the smaller one is a 24 mm ball bearing and I'll use that for a majority of the ones I'm going to be making and then on the bigger ones like 16 and 1 12 through 18 I use a larger ball bearing which is a u it's a 26 mm you can tell I don't use it that much cuz it's kind of rusty and it was sitting out in the garage for a while so probably have to sand it up before I use it but it'll be just fine so we're going to go ahead and get started with the first process so the first thing we're going to do is you know we need a d that's going to be actually be able to fit this thing so that one's a little too small so I had this one made it fits it real perfectly and we're going to go ahead and start pressing it with the 24 mm ball bearing okay so now we have all our ball bearing all positioned and ready to go inside the press and remember if you watch that other video about the specifics on these tools these uh dieses and everything I talked about how I played around with different angles and everything like that with these and I found out 20° was perfect well here's one of the dies I was playing around with um it's not at 20° and so what happens is it's a little steeper of an angle and it's a lot harder to keep the coin flush or flat I guess square with the top of that die as we're going down so I'm going to have to keep repositioning it until I get small enough to move to the smaller die that actually is 20° and works a lot better so that's what I'm going to start doing now get a 20° uh die it probably go a lot smoother so word to the wise this isn't too bad though so you can see it's starting to get a little bit off kilter so I'm going to go ahead and switch it right now and square back up and the reason you don't want to go off kilter in there is because you don't want it to have a lopsided ring when you're finished so if you just keep pressing away and it's going crooked your ring will come out looking a little crooked when you're finished also all right that might be about enough let's take a look so that would be just about enough so now you can see that it will fit inside that die and we're going to go ahead and kneel it before we start any further so it doesn't split and then we'll be right back pressing into this die okay so we're all kneel and ready to continue the pressing here we go same ball bearing 24 mm ball bearing okay we're about through here and that is it it's bottomed out inside the D now so we go ahead and pull it out and take a look at it so this is what we have when we pulled it out so the ball bearing has bottomed out and has actually wedged itself inside that coin so the thing we're going to do to get it out we could put it in the die here here smack it with a hammer or we could go ahead and press it out with the Press since I have the Press sitting right here I'll just do that though okay so now we are ready for the next step so at this point what I'm going to do is going to go ahead and kneel it again and then we're going to file the edges of this ring back here to round them out and then we'll be ready for the next process after that we're going to go ahead and file these edges with a half round file the round side on the inside and the flat side on the outside okay so you can see it's all been sanded and filed so what we did is we s filed it with that half round file and we went ahead and sanded it with some you know 120 to 340 sandpaper and we came up with something looks like that so now we know there's not going to be any splits going on because of a like a small crack that might have been in there and it's been annealed and ready to start stretching so we're going to do for stretching ing is put it on this ring sizer back here and same process as the half dollars basically the only difference is going to be this is a bigger ring so we're not going to have very far to get to the bottom so we're going to stretch it as far as we [Music] can that's about it right there so the problem here and I'll get a little closer so you can see it here so unlike the half dooll video we want to get this completely stretched out towards touching this stretching mandrel we're not going to be able to get that to happen on a Morgan Dollar because the stretching manual just isn't large enough so there's two routes you can go to solve this problem okay so the first route what we can do is this stretching Mandel that we made in another video remember it was connected to a block well I ground that part off so that way we have a four-sided Leaf system that we can just slip over the top of this so we can so we can just go ahead and slip it over the top of this stick our Morgan and then continue stretching so that is one option that we could do the problem with this is sometimes it'll stretch a little too far and there be harder to get back down to a size 13 this method works really great when you're trying to make a size 16 ring or something like that because you can stretch it out usually it's about three sizes larger than the size you want to get to so say you want to do a 16 you have to stretch it up to a 17 18 stretch it up to a 19 to get it back down to a 16 in the sizing but what I like to do on the smaller sizes is go back to hammering the hammering method just finish closing that up on a mandrel just hammering it doesn't take a lot of time it's not a lot of effort so that's what I'm going to choose to do okay so when we decide you want to hammer it down a Mandel we're going to encounter yet another problem with these Morgan dollars we have our mandrel okay so it doesn't fit on a regular size mandrel right so that's not a problem they also make these larger mandrels too so this one is what the one we're going to use and it barely fits on the top which is perfect and so we're going to go ahead and take this and Hammer it down till those sides are flush against there so it's already analed it's soft as it's going to get so we just got to start hammering that's the next step just keep turning as you Hammer Hammer it evenly like you would um a regular half doll or a quarter during the hammering method so that's what we're going to keep doing here till it's nice and snug up against there okay so now you can see didn't take a whole lot of time it was really really quick and it's hampered nice and snug up against there so just like the half dollars we don't want want any bumps or protrusions sticking out of this thing or you have to continue hammering it because it will mess you up in the sizing stage so that is ready to be annealed again and then we're going to move on to sizing okay so now here it is off the mandrel and we're ready to start sizing so I measured this uh size coming off the big mandrel and it's about a size 18 now so when it comes to sizing we need about three sizes over the target size in order to shrink it back back down to the size we want with nice and straight sides you can tell this has really badly cone shaped sides right now we don't like that so we want to get rid of it so like I said three sizes so so it's sitting at 18 right now so we can go down to a 17 16 15 in theory um it might even have to go a little bit more depending it might be three and a half sizes that you need to go down so yeah so you're going to have to play around with that and see how that works for you I found about three sizes works for me though um so we want to get this down to a 13 say you want to make it a 16 what you're going to have to do if you don't want to stretch it with the that copper pipe over the stretcher you can do it another way you can size it down till the sides are nice and straight say it gets down to a 14 and 1/2 or 15 and 1/2 something like that you can start see this has a big old fat uh coin Edge on this thing and when it's curled in you can start sanding the inside right there without touching the detail at all and you can bring it up quite a bit actually if you depending on how want you sand off that's usually how I deal with it cuz I do not like using that big stretcher on there cuz it tends to Mush up the detail on the inside a little more than I like and you can tell right now the detail is really crisp still I like to keep it that way so I'll size it down and then I'll just use a a Dremel with a barrel sander on it and I'll sand my way back up or I could use a file the file back up and that's what I do to get up to sizes you know 16 16 and a half I'll use a 5/8 hole and then sand it up you know I'll make the sides straight once the sides are straight um then I'll start to sand the inside to get to my target size so um that's pretty much all I really want to say about that I'm not going to actually do it I think you guys can figure it out from my description it's not that difficult so what I'm going to go ahead and do now is Si is this one down to a size 13 we're going to start putting it in our press with our dye and we'll make it happen right now okay so we're going to be moving away from this larger D now that was only for the initial part we're going to stick with this medium siiz D that you that I have here and so this is going to go right in we're going to put some sort of a pressing device that covers it completely and we're going to start pressing it down I'm going to go ahead and do um as we were talking about earlier about getting sides nice and straight if you're doing those larger sizes I'm just going to go ahead and straighten the sides now so you can see what that looks like and see what size I make it to so we're going to go ahead and do [Music] that okay we are about there now let's take a look at it real quick okay so you can see now we're sitting at about a size 15 so that's exactly three sizes down and you can tell the barrel of it's nice and straight and that's exactly what we're looking for so if you were wan to make a size 15 you know you would just size it up and Hammer it down the Mandel like you normally would come to about a size 18 and we reduce it down so but the problem here still is if you were looking for a size 15 the inside of that band is still incredibly sharp so what we need to do is file that with that half round file again just to get it comfortable to wear smooth it out that's probably going to raise it a quarter size to a half size right there so if that happens you go ahead and sand it get it squared away the way you like it and then you'll reduce it down to get to your target size still if you were looking for a 15 and 1/2 that would be perfect for you then You' just sand it up to a 15 and A2 you'd remove the sharp edges and be on your way you could do that all the way up to a 16 or 16 and a half and not have any bad effects on the inside of that coin so that is how you would size that size range in there like a 16 and 1 12 down to a 15 but like I said we still need to get this down to a size 13 for our customer that I'm making it for so it's back to the Press so we're going to go ahead and put a coin Ring Side coin Edge side down again and keep going down now with this particular die I found it bottoms out and this ring will turn out to be about a 13 and 1 12 so we're going to get there first okay so now we're there now this thing is bottomed out I can't press anymore because that is touching the the die and now it is sitting right about not quite 13 and 1 12 about 13 and 3/4 almost so what we need to do is find um something that'll get down into that die a little bit so we can continue pressing so what I have done is I have a uh socket that I ground off and this is what I use it'll go down further into that die far enough for me anyway to get down to a size 13 so what I do set that in [Music] there so I set my coin back in there and put this right over the top of it and it's just enough to go over the the ring so you're getting even pressure on the ring but it's not enough to actually touch the sides of the D as I'm pressing down that's important you don't want you want the ring to be completely covered and you don't want anything touching the side of that die other than something soft like silver you don't want steel touching steel then we're going to cover it with this one let begin to [Music] press okay let's take a look at what size it is here so now you can see we're at about a size 13 what we need to do is we need to keep going down a little bit farther so I can sand back that sharp edge so I'm going to go down to about a 12 and 3/4 12 and 1/2 something like that and that's another thing as I like to go I like to to compress evenly on both sides so you can see I've already started to do the other side also so that means as I was pressing this down I get to about size 13 and then I'll flip it around and then do a little compression on this side so that way I keep those sides more or less even you don't want to get overly flared you don't want to get overly flared out on one side and then turn it around and have the whole thing kind of shift on you and you'll have a cockeyed looking ring so that's what I like to do is just do it it evenly do it one a little bit on this side a little bit of that side until you get to your target size so I'm going to go ahead and compress this a little bit farther to get down below a 13 just a tiny bit okay so we're right where we want to be pretty much just below a size 12 1/2 and I'm going to go ahead and now compress the other side to make the band look even and then we'll start our sanding process okay so instead of putting it in this coin Edge side down I'm going to flip it around start reducing on the [Music] side same exact procedure here go ahead and get that all lined up and ready to squish here and be careful not to go too far so check it pretty often okay so now you can look at the band and see that it's looking about right now so what we're going to go ahead and do now is start sanding the inside of that band with a file and some sandpaper just to get it smoothed out and get it back up to our Target size of 13 okay so now it's been all sanded and sized and it's sitting exactly at a 13 the band looks real nice and it's ready for the finishing process and you can see the inside of the band here real quick let me get a view on that you can see okay so you can see it's been sanded back and smoothed out compared to what it was and look at how much extra meat is left in there that you could take off before you ever got to the detail on the inside and that's really a good way of sizing these too you could sand it if you really want to you can sand keep sanding and get rid of more of that rim and you can keep sizing it up larger if you wanted to what if you over sand it um over file it you're trying to get to a 13 and you you know you overshoot it by a quarter size after you realize uh oh I've over filed this thing well then go right back to the dieses and reduce it a little bit more so you have that leeway you can reduce stretch and you will get to where you want to get so the next step now is to show how to do a larger one so size 16 and 1 12 through a size 18 with a different size hole so that'll be the next step okay so now we got the larger sized hole one this is going to be a 3/4 in hole that I've punched in here and with this one we're going to go ahead and use the 26 mm Ball Bear ing for the whole thing and this one I decided I am going to do tail side out so we can see what that one looks like so if we're going to do it Tails side out that means it's got to be headsight up in the die so we'll set it heads Side Up in the die and start pressing but before that we're going to go ahead and anneal [Music] it okay so now we're all annealed and ready to start pressing [Music] here just keep an eye that it's going down nicely in the center if not adjust it okay okay so we're about halfway through the process here and it's about that far tapered now and we're going to go ahead and switch D before we do I'm going to go ahead and a knal it again so now it's all in knal we've switched to the smaller D and we're going to do the last bit of pressing [Music] [Music] now [Music] and that is it right there okay so now you can see it's been bottomed out in the press and again the ball bearing's stuck in it so we're going to go ahead and get that out the same way but that is the taper we're looking at now so the next step here is to see if we either want to do it on the ring stretcher with that sleeve over it or we can go ahead and just hammer it out on the large mandrel I'm going to choose to go ahead and Hammer this one out in the large mandrel but before I do we're going to go ahead and anal it and then take care of these edges we're going to file them and then sand them like we did the first one okay so now it's been annealed and we have these edges all filed and ready to go so now the next step would be to start hammering it down that large ring Mandel all right so it's all been hammered down now and it's all nice and tight up against the ring mandrel it's sitting right about uh let's see here 19 and 1/2 so that would make a 16 and 1 12 ring if we were to size it down three sizes so we're going to go ahead and size it down and then once we have it size down we'll go ahead and start um as soon as we have the sides flattened out so you have to have nice straight size CU now we have a taper once their sides are straightened out we're going to go ahead and start finish sizing so I do it from size 16 and2 to a size 18 and basically the way that's done is um the way I do it anyway is I just take the the extra meat out of the inside of here um and that's how I size the larger ones so we're going to go ahead and do that but first what we really need to do is a knal it one more time before we go sizing so now it's been a knel and we're ready to start sizing so what we're doing is putting the coin Edge side down because that's the side with a taper in it we're going to start pressing it till we get rid of all that [Music] taper so now you can see it's actually starting to taper the other way so we have it as small as we need to go for right now let's check it on the ring sizer see what it is so now you can see we are at 16 and A4 and so that would be about perfect if we want to make a 16 and 1 12 you just you know take care of those sharp edges inside of there and then you're going to have to well it's about straight so you just take care of the um the sharp edges on the inside of this here and you'd be right at a 16 and 1/2 or you can just take care of a little bit more and you'll be to a 17 17 and 1/2 18 so that's how I would would do it so I'm going to go ahead and finish this one up and see if I can't make it into a size 17 ring real quick so the first step is take our half round file again and start sanding this inside out so now it's sized up to a size 17 ring and you can see the sides are nice and straight and looks pretty good so we can continue to file it down if you wanted to get to a size 18 but I'm going to stop at 17 it's fine um you can see there's quite a bit more room left to go in there too so we could take it quite a bit more the reason I'm doing the filing is it's just a lot easier for me to do that than try figuring out a way to make my ring stretcher larger and um so finally what I've always done the um that sleeve that I that I showed earlier is very very new to me so I haven't really had a chance to use it a whole lot so I just stick with the old method for now I'm sure that that sleeve will work just fine though but that is pretty much the size 17 now the next thing thing would be would be to clean it up and do the antiquing process and that's going to be shown we have another video that shows how to antique silver coin rings but I will show you the finished product when we're done okay so here's the finished product all polished up and ready to go I'm going to link a video below at finished polishing silver so you can take a look at exactly how to do that I didn't want to cover the same ground again for people so you can go ahead and take a look at that video to see how I did that but this is it and I made this shot for some of those coin collectors out there who thought you know this is a rarer date in 1894 so you can see it's a 1894 o now not a p or anything so still a little bit more expensive than normal but this was actually for a customer who had a um specific date for for sentimental reasons they actually ordered a barber a Barber half dollar in size 13 also so but um yeah it's a really cool it's actually a really cool set so that's an know [Music] also so hopefully this video was helpful for you guys and um if it was please like it and subscribe all right thank you

Channel: Change You Can Wear

Views: 5,435,308

Keywords: coin ring, how to, silver eagle, jewelry, stacking, franklin half dollar, eagle, silver stacking, coin, coin rings, walking liberty, double eagle, investing, gold

Id: z4pWpU3_qNw

Length: 27min 20sec (1640 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 03 2015