My ring doesn't fit anymore!

 "My ring doesn't fit anymore. Can you help me?" Well its funny you asked, because I was just in the process of writing a blog about that very subject! After sizing thousands of rings over the course of 40 plus years I've developed a method. Here it is.


First the rings are inspected for loose stones and any worn prongs. Certain stones such as emeralds, pearls, tanzanite, opal, and generally anything green can't take the heat required to size a ring. They have to be removed or protected first. Diamonds can take great heat but have to be cleaned thoroughly to remove soap and other grunge or it can get baked on the back of them in the next process.. Here I am cleaning diamonds with a steam cleaner.
In the next process I heat the shank or bottom of the ring. This will reveal any previous sizing seams. I usually remove the old section of sizing stock and replace it with one larger one, to prevent the ring from having more than one set of seams, which would weaken it. This is a perfect example of a sizing seam.

 The ring below had never been sized before, but it did have sizing balls in it which I removed for good. The idea is that they will take up space after the ring passes over the knuckle and keep the ring from turning on the finger. In my opinion they don't seem to work well. Its kind of like having a stone in your shoe. You always know its there and you can't wait to get it out.

Here you can see that I've split the rings at the bottom and am preparing a peice of gold stock which I will fit and then gold weld into the space.The long metal tube is called a ring mandrel. It increases in thickness from one end to the other. Each line is a quarter of a size. That's how I know how much bigger to make the ring. I seperated the wedding band from the engaement ring and sized them seperately. Later I'll weld them back together. 
This tool is called a Rolling Mill. Its one of the first tools I spent a lot of money on, and one that I've used the most. It was worth the money. It is 30 years old and still going strong. I melt gold into a blob (or billet) and then use the roller to flatten and form it. Yellow gold is very malleable, it can be rolled like dough underneath a rolling pin. I then file the peice to the right dimension.
Here are the rings with the gold sizing stock gold welded into them. After this process a lot of filing and shaping goes into the project. And then the polishing....
And the finished rings! Looking as good as the day they were bought. And they fit again!

 Thanks for looking! Cheers and Happy New Years!
David Inlow















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