A few rings

[Eric Holmquist]

I've been playing around with combining turning with jewelry recently and made this batch of rings in various sizes from 5 to 14. Made from a variety of woods, Maple, Bloodwood, Walnut, Yellowheart, Cocobolo and Bocote. Mostly finished with Lacquer

[Steve Schlumpf]

Eric - nice work! Quite the variety of colors - should be big sellers for you!

[Marc Himes]

Very pretty rings, I like the combinations of wood you used.

[Baxter Smith]

Nice rings Eric!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Really nice rings and great combo of wood.

[Michael James]

NIce job and selection of woods!
mj

[Jeff Fagen]

I'm embarrassed to show my crummy rings now.

[Kathy Marshall]

Nice bunch of rings Eric! Rings have been on my "one of these days" list and seeing yours reminds me that I need to give them a try.

[Eric Holmquist]

Thanks everyone. Rings are a fun project and relatively easy to make once you settle on a work holding method.

[Tim Thiebaut]

Those are cool Eric, my daughter would love something like this, love the varied woods you used. Did you use a standard ring sizer to get your sizes right? I was thinking of picking one up off amazon, they have one pretty cheap there, to use on rings like this.

[Eric Holmquist]

To determine what size to make for the one I can wear, I used a drafting circle template that I got at Staples or Office Max. It is one of those translucent green things with a series of holes in 1/32 increments. I just found the hole that fit my finger and used calipers. To make the series of standard ring sizes, I used a ring size chart that I think I found on Wikipedia and calipers.

From a simple reference point, a 5/8" is US/Canada ring size 5, a 3/4" is ring size 9, and 1/2" is around size 1 1/2.

The lady who sits next to me at work is a silver smith, and she has both a reference set of plastic rings to measure what standard ring size matches a finger, and a set of plugs for the various ring sizes to make sure that the ID of the ring is what she is trying to make.

[Betty Fox]

Ron,
I wanna make rings. :)

[Jerry Rhoads]

Very nice rings Eric, and thanks for the sizing information.

Jerry

[Dave Mueller]

Eric,
Really nice combinations. Did you glue up the different woods with the grain perpendicular or parallel? If parallel, do they split along the grain? Not trying to steal your techniques, just want to learn...

[Ted Calver]

These are beauties Eric!! I can see matching ring, bracelet, pendant and earring sets selling like crazy.

[Donny Lawson]

Very nice. So far all my rings are one type of wood. Looks like I need to expand a little.

[Eric Holmquist]

Sounds like a good idea, I just made some earrings and a pendant but it never occurred to me to match the rings. Now I have to give this some thought.

[Eric Holmquist]

The different woods are perpendicular (ignoring the veneer which is too thin to affect strength). For the triple wood pieces, the matching outside pieces are parallel with each other, while the inner contrasting piece is perpendicular. The idea is to create the illusion that the outer pieces one solid piece and that the inner contrast stuff is an inlay.

[Dave Mueller]

Thanks, Eric.
The idea of making the center band look like an insert adds a nice touch. I have some really nice stabilized burl that I was going to cut up for pens, but think I'll try some rings. I also like the idea of matching pendants. Maybe start with a bracelet sized triple wood piece and use the core for a matching pendant or ring. Way to many ideas...not enough time!