MAKING A SIGNET RING IN 18K GOLD!!!

ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the workshop it is fantastic as ever to have you here now as you're watching this I'm not in the workshop I'm in the UK visiting family go to some museums getting some stuff done like that and the reason that this video is so far out of chronology from what I'm filming it is in this episode I am gonna be making a signet ring as a gift for my father my father has always worn a signet ring it's a very British gentlemanly thing to do and as a very British gentleman I think he's gonna like a little update made by me which I'm very excited about I'm gonna make this thing out of 18 karat gold and this is gonna be the first time I will have ever cast gold so it's gonna be an expensive education hopefully it's gonna work out well the first thing that I need to do now before we get into the gold is we need to work in some wax so we are gonna be shaping the ring from wax to start off with because we're gonna be doing lost wax process just like we did on the cavalry saber when will was working on carving all that wax for the guard at the time of filming this I actually don't know if we ever successfully poured that cavalry saber guard I hope we did but anyway I have three different sizes of tubular wax doesn't need to be a tubular wax I'm sure I could do this without it being a tubular wax but I saw these and I thought these would be useful for doing stuff like this so this is what we're gonna use now this is a ring about the right size I don't have to guess on the size slightly which shouldn't be too much of a problem but I know this one is close to fitting him and I think just a safety sake we're gonna use this piece here it's certainly shaped a little more like a signet ring and one of the first things I got to do is work out the size and I am pretty sure this is close but a little on the small size so I'm probably gonna make it a seven and a quarter or a seven and a half so to work with the wax I need to cut it off and I'm gonna use a saw that's slightly different from a normal jewelers saw blade they make these little things which is a saw blade that's basically a spiral and it saves the wax clogging it so much so we're gonna set the soar up and start soaring [Music] [Music] [Music] oh my goodness I had no idea this was gonna work so well this is so cool I keep it up this mandrill I didn't have to worry about filing the whole round I can just you know melt the whole round oh my goodness this is awesome so I watched a couple of YouTube videos of people making signet-ring and a guy with a channel of cold goods did this let's clean off the mandrel and we got to start shaping this thing some more right now it is naturally gentlest there is no way that is the right size so we've got a trimmer down some [Music] all righty so here is the update we have a hole in it we've got a shape we've got it filed it is on its way to looking good now naturally since I'm removing material from a much larger piece I'm trying to take it slow especially because I've not worked with wax and I'm not made a signet ring before so I'm taking it slow taking it easy I'm leaving it thick to then slowly bring it down to the exact sizes that I need and it's a funny thing because while you're working with it the perspective that I'm having is wow this thing is ridiculously small and tiny this is so strange and yet you know I then put it on my finger and I'm like oh my goodness this is obscene how much material there is on the signet ring that's a good thing it's a good problem to have I'd rather ease my way down to the final size then make a mistake and have to start over again that's a much much easier way of going about things actually there are limits to that sometimes it's a worse way of going about things but right now I'm liking that slow and steady approach I use some dividers to mark out a little circle here on the top that's what I've got that little transition there to help show I'm going to clean it up a little bit and then take the level of the top and bring it down a little cause of the final height [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] this feeling right here this is what making stuff is about feeling of just being so ecstatic that the thing that you're making is starting to look like what you intended to make and that is awesome because signal rings are awesome and this is starting to look that way oh my goodness it has flow to it it looks fantastic I couldn't be more thrilled with how this is going so far working this wax this is gonna be just the coolest thing once it's cast into gold oh my goodness this is it's already giving you the rundown on how this spiral saw blade works with the wax but also want to show you some of the other tools that I'm using for the rough shaping these are wax files so they're made specifically for filing carving wax like this now again this is specific wax made for carving which means it's extremely hard and is less liable to gum up a file but it's still will surf a heavy stock removal of course we use these wax files wax rasps they come in a set and they are just phenomenal great for stock removing from there I then move on to files now of course files come in different grades or different cuts this here is a zero cut file which is velour BAE's system of defining the cut of the file it then goes all the way up from zero to one to two to three to four being much finer than that this here is a number one cut half round file which means that that is a little less aggressive than that zero but to finish it so far to get a little closer to where we want it I've been using this needle file since this is the only size of file that I have a number four cut in a very nice and fine cut so that's all working very well for the wax work I'm gonna jump back into it and get this thing ready [Music] [Music] the wax piece is now ready for us to prepare it for casting which obviously since if you're gonna be doing lost wax on this just like Omni cavalry tip of God I need to sprue this up now what is the sprue it's the pathway for the molten gold to flow into the design and it's how we fill up the design with the gold that's the hope at least so I need to attach it to the wax piece and then gonna weigh all of that so I can then calculate how much gold I actually need to melt so I'm gonna get all that wax spring attached and what I can see I think I might need a little more riser okay so this is what I got so far but this article that I'm reading has this little picture right there and states that in a perfect world a piece should have a feeder attached to only one of the heavy sections and any other heavy sections should have Rises so I'm gonna break off this white wax sprit from these heavy sections and I'm gonna sprue this ring sideways okay that looks a little more like what the article was referring to sprue piece riser so now I'm gonna melt the sprue onto the button there we go so this this is the sprue base this goes inside the flask now I've got to fill this with investment and get this wax burning out in the Paragon kiln well I imagine it's quite a surprise you've seen me pour the gold and then you see me start wax working again why is that well I messed up and I had to start on the wax again didn't get the gold hot enough I didn't keep the torch on the gold as I poured and so it just made a mess it went terribly it has been a nightmare but I am now here with the wax and over at that side of this little area I have some silicon ready to be mixed and poured because I am going to make a silicon mold of this in case it fails again so I can keep pouring these things because it means once I learn how to not mess up my castings I could make more so I've got off a piece of steel and I have stuck that a little wax piece in that we get our silicon ready we have some pots we have scales we have the final mixing Cup and a tongue depressor for a mixing stick at a feeling I mean you need about 125 grams of each we're gonna fill this pot up so now we're gonna pour B into a now we start mixing okay now we're gonna vacuum it it's rising a lot in there that expands like crazy oh and now it's collapsing that's a good sign oh wow that's incredible now I go to pour it please tell me I've got enough okay now we're gonna vacuum it again okay now we wait the silicon has set now got to push this mold out of the steel how that with me for a second I got it out now I've got to take an exacto knife and split this apart to get the wax out I have no idea how to do this [Music] oh my goodness I just cut a mold I think semi successfully it has indexing how cool is that that is the most awesome thing I have ever seen I saw a video Pablo Seema Davila cutting a mold when he did a vulcanized rubber thing just by the way everybody go watch Pablo's videos they're amazing I'm gonna melt some wax and we are gonna try pumping some wax in here with a turkey baster here we go the baby powder supposedly helps this event we're gonna hold it tight okay so I'm gonna suck up the wax and okay hopefully this work better okay that went better that is so [Music] holy moly this thing looks awesome first time successfully casting gold and it's just it looks awesome at the time that I'm filming this this is just a few days after we successfully cast that final calorie saber god and it's obviously part of the reason that ended up being successful was learning a little bit more about how to avoid porosity I'm thrilled to say in this there was no porosity you do remember had a riser on the bottom of the ring I sent a picture of my sprue dope wax piece to Pablo Seema Davila he sure to check out his YouTube channel that's amazing and he told me I didn't need it so this was cast just with the sprue from the top down filling this thing up and it worked beautifully I now need to work on the inside of the Ring just a little bit clean it up clean up some of the rough stuff before we get it closer to size and then begin the finishing process [Music] [Music] I have this ring polished up and holy moly it is looking shiny and the next step we've got its size we've got a file got a sanded polished is for us to work on engraving I need to engrave the letters G and s let me tell you engraver script is not easy this is just some of the pages of drawing that I've done trying to work out how I design that G and that s and this is pretty much what I've come up with there's the final design for the G and the s and so it means of course I'm just gonna go straight to the gold and carve in my first ever engraver script letters no time to do some practice [Music] so I've done about 20 attempts here I drew the G in the s probably between 20 and 50 times I've now cuts the G in the s about 20 times or so I am definitely and not up for putting this into gold but it is now time because it's got to happen at some point I'm gonna have to jump in and do it and I'm never gonna feel comfortable doing it if I don't just do it it's time for me to jump in to that 18 karat gold ring and engrave it then this thing is going to be finished [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'm so absurdly nervous this is just this is terrible I don't wanna do this I gotta do this though and I don't need my glasses here we go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the signet ring is finished and this is one beefy piece of 18 karat gold this thing is no joke there's 18 grams of gold in this thing it looks awesome and for me to have been able to do this engraving at this point and my skill level engraving frankly blew my mind this isn't by no means perfect but I've learned so much doing this has been such a challenge and such a thrill to push myself on this project I hope it inspires you to get out there and push yourself on some of your own projects I'm so excited also like this gets to be a gift for my father because I think he's gonna really enjoy this I hope it fits thank you guys so much for watching and the videos that you're gonna be seen coming out over the next few days are gonna be from will at the shop and so best of luck to you will on the projects you're gonna be working on I am in England visiting family and then I am going quickly nipping down to Texas for a jewelry course I'm learning how to do pave diamond setting with the jewelry Institute of Australia it's gonna be super fun I can't wait the best Alecto will thank you guys for watching for hanging along be sure to subscribe if you're new this this so much fun hugely fun project thank you guys so much see on the next one bye bye

Channel: Alec Steele

Views: 1,747,446

Keywords: alec steele, alex steele, steel, alec, damascus, blacksmith, make, forge, anvil, mill, lathe, weld, tig, mig, engineering, blacksmithing, blade, bladesmithing, knife, knifemaking, sword, handmade, diy, craft, woodworking, forged in fire, axe, fabrication, art

Id: _S5Ir92HJnk

Length: 17min 57sec (1077 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2019