These past two weeks in Advanced Jewelry we were given the assignment to make a hollow ring. Because I’m in an upper level class, I had to make a knuckle duster. A knuckle duster is a ring that covers two or more fingers. The ring had to have texture incorporated as well. I decided to make my ring out of copper and brass because I feel like they look best together.

First I came up with a design and bent a long flat piece of brass to match it. After that was done the hardest part for me was soldering it to a flat piece of copper. I always struggle with getting the solder to flow between the two pieces of metal. The ring part is then soldered to the same flat piece of metal inside of the design. Once the one side is soldered I like to cut the design out before doing the other side.

The other side is tricky because you have to be careful you don’t melt your original solder seams. I melted a few in my attempt to solder the other side. After the other side was soldered I cut the extra metal off and cleaned up the solder joints. I gave the copper parts a dip in the liver of sulfur to darken it. I took sandpaper to the brass parts to give it a brushed look. Once I was happy with the finishes I put a coat of wax on it to seal the patina. I wasn’t completely happy with my solder seams because there are lots of melted spots. This is because the metal was too thin. I want to look at this project as a learning experience so that I could do better next time.