Part III, Making the Ring Shank

Next, once you have the size measured, you need to translate this into the length of the ring shank. Using my handy dandy shank guide. I see that size 4.5 = 48 mm. I have 18 ga sterling silver so I need to add the thickness of the silver to the length of the ring 1mm for 18 ga (approx and double it to 50mm, I always go a little bigger for filing issues.



Now I use dividers to measure out exactly the length.



Once done saw the shank with your jeweller's saw and then file the ends so they are completely straight.



Then anneal the ring shank before shaping.



Once annealed, then put in the pickle.



Shape the ring shank first with the half moon pliers and anneal again, put in pickle pot.


After ring is shaped you need to anneal again because the metal expands again, adjust if you need to (see my ring shank expanded a little so I manipulated the shank again so both sides are completely flush together

Anneal again and pickled then you can flux the piece in preparation to be soldered.

Once fluxed I quickly heat the fluxed area to settle down the flux (it bubbles up with heat). Then take hard solder (HS) pallions (tiny cut pieces of HS, about 2mm x 1mm), dip the pallions in flux then place on ring joint. I put two pallions on the joint. Torch around the ring shank and high above the joint to settle down the flux that was on the pallions. Slowly go around the shank to heat it up evenly. Once heated up (now for this shank it took about 30 seconds) slowly wand over the HS pallions till you see the pallions melt and the flow into the joint. Once the HS has flowed into the joint, pick up the ring shank with cross tweezers and heat under (underside) the shank to "pull through" the HS. Once you see the HS flow through to the other side of the joint, Time to quench in water then toss again into the pickle.




Now comes the filing part. Opposite to where the joint is (180 degrees) file the ring shank down so the bezel fits nicely. Now since this is a small bezel setting, we don't need to file the bezel to fit the ring shank, but to file the ring shank down so the bezel lays flat. This is very important, the bezel must be flat on the ring shank. Below shows the joint that needs to be filed.



The two parts: shank and bezel ready to go together.