Making a Silver Dollar Ring with Diamonds and Sapphires

Hey guys, Skylar here from the MinChange you can wear. Today I'm really excited about the video we're about to make. What we're going to be doing is taking a Morgan dollar, making it into a coin ring, and then adding some sapphires and diamonds to it. This is going to be great. I've been working up to this video for the last several months and I am really excited it's finally here and we're going to actually make this ring. Alright, let's get the coin ring made first and then we'll start getting ready to add the stones to it. The first step for making a coin ring is cutting the hole in it and then getting it folded into a cone shape. We're using a 5 eighths inch hole for this guy today. Now we'll take our deburring tool and cut that sharp edge off that's in there. Now we just need to soften the metal by annealing it so that way it doesn't crack when we start to fold it. Now we just need to re-sand this cut edge here and check for cracks. Looks good. Let's keep folding. Alright now we have it completely folded into a cone shape like this. And now we move into the second phase of coin ring making which is shrinking this thing down to an appropriate size. And we do that with the Swedish wrap. And the first step of the Swedish wrap is to wrap this guy in Teflon tape. And this is a Swedish wrap kit that Jason's Works makes. I'll leave a link in the description box for my tool list video so you guys can see what I'm using here. What these dies are designed to do is to take this coin and then shrink the entire thing down. Let's see how it works. Starting to go down the die. Getting smaller. Alright so the Teflon tape totally protected the detail of the coin while it was being shrank in that die. And now that we're done with this we're going to move into the third and final phase of the coin ring making which is getting it evened up on the ring stretcher a little bit, sizing it, and then antique finishing it. And don't forget, unless you're a fool, Pepe's a tool. Alright now we have the exact shape that we need. It's good and even. And once we have it like this, we need to deburr that lip on the inside. It's a nice sharp lip inside of there so we'll take our deburring tool and get rid of that lip and then antique it and completely finish the ring and then once we're done with that we can start setting stones. Alright so this is our Citric Acid Pickle by Nature's Touch and this is what we're going to use to clean this ring with. So we'll leave it in there for about five minutes or so. Once it's done, clean it with a little Dawn Dish Soap and then put it in our Liver of Sulfur Solution. Alright we've got our hot water here and we're going to add one to two drops of this Liver of Sulfur XL Gel to it. And this is what we use to antique with. It's only going to be in there a minute or two, that's all it takes. Now that we have that all done, we'll take some 4-0t Steel Wool and take some of that antique back off so we'll have some of the detail show through. And if we were to stop right here, we'd have a fantastic ring. But, we're taking this thing to a whole other level. Let's go start setting some stones in it. Alright, so we're at my other bench and this has got a catch tray in it. And what we need to do is make sure we line this with something that's easy to find stones on if we drop one. And what I like to use is a black shirt. You know, something that possibly you would never wear. This will work. And here are the stones we're using. We have six sapphires and a diamond. I want the diamond to be right in the middle and then the sapphires going from big to small on either side. In order to do that, we need to stick them onto this. And the way you do that is you lick them and then you stick them with your spit. Very COVID friendly. Alright, check that out. They're all laid out, nice and even. And one thing I have noticed, when you're setting stones, no matter how much you think you don't shake after drinking coffee, when you're looking under magnification, you most definitely do. Alright, so now we got it like that. We like it. Double check where our placement is, which I think it looks really good. We're going to take a scribe, this little guy, and mark everywhere these are by taking it right down from the top of the culet, which is the point of the stone, and then press straight down through it, moving it out of the way and making our mark. So we'll start on the outside and work our way in. Now we have all our little marks made on here. We're going to take this punch and then make a good size divot so we can start drilling holes. Now that these are all done, I'm going to see if I can't let you guys see what I'm seeing through the scope real quick so you can see exactly what these look like. Alright, so now we have those holes all marked. We're going to take a drill bit and start to drill all those holes out. Our holes are all drilled. So we're going to use a ball bur to open up most of the hole. And then as soon as we get close to the size of the stone, we're going to switch to setting burs. And then once we have that done, we'll go to the next step. Alright, so our holes are all drilled. Everything's looking really, really good. And if you take a look at these holes here, the way we did these is we started by drilling a hole with a drill bit, and then we came in little at a time with the ball bur. And this is what a ball bur is right here, these guys. And so we'll get the holes bigger and bigger and bigger with ball burs, little bit at a time, until we get right within our target size for our stone. And then once we get close enough to it, we will switch to a setting bur, which is this guy right here. And these setting burs, what they do is they have a little seat area it creates, this little triangle edge. It creates a nice little ledge inside of these holes, and that'll hold the stone nice and level in there. So now that we have that all done, we're going to bright cut on either side of this. And basically a bright cut is just a cut that goes down below the edge of the holes right here, and that's going to create some of this, this little metal right here, it'll create like a little, like an island of metal. And we're going to create beads with those. So we have to have them standing on by themselves in order to make them into beads. And the beads are what holds the stones into place. So it's kind of confusing when you describe it, but once you start seeing it, you'll understand a lot more. So that's the next step. We'll start bright cutting the sides and getting our beads created. Alright, so we've got our Graver Max all ready to go, and this is just a power-driven flat graver. It's basically air-driven, like a little jackhammer. And this is what we're going to use to do our bright cuts and start making our beads. So let's get going. Alright, there's the start of it. Alright, so here is where we're at now. So we've taken the graver through either side, these guys right here, those are called bright cuts, and we cut all the way around. And then once we got that done, see we cut the middles of these guys out too, and so what that has left are these little wedges right here. So these little wedges are what's going to end up becoming our beads. So now what we've got to do is cut these in half, put our stones in first, cut each of these wedges in half, and then fold them over onto each stone. And then once we do that, then we can start using our beading tool and roll little beads. And that is what we'll end up doing right now. In go the stones, if they all fit. So, here is where we're at now. So what we did, we cut on either side of the stones, and then cut down into this, creating these little wedges, and then we cut down the middle of everything, and then made little wedges on either side. And once we were done with that, we took our graver and split the wedges in half. And once we have all the little wedges split in half, we took this guy, it's a beading tool, and the end of it is just a tiny little disc, basically. You take those wedges and then roll them around to make little beads. And after a little bit of cleanup, you know, there's a little bit of slag on either side of the beads, so you come in with the graver and just kind of clean it up a little bit. This is where we're at. Looks really good. I'll put some light on it. The lighting has been really difficult. The filming really small stuff has been incredibly difficult for me. I've got a camera that goes in the scope, but it doesn't work that well. So, I've got to figure that out. This is a really awesome result. So now what we've got to do is pull it off of here. So we'll polish this up with a little bit of a buff, with some green rouge, and then we'll be good to go. Throw in the ultrasonic, clean it up, and it'll be finished. Alright guys, it's finished. You know, Morgan Dollars are some of my favorite coin rings to make, just because they look so awesome. But when you add sapphires and diamonds to them, they just really stand out. Super excited about this. I've been learning fine jewelry for the last several months, and I've got a lot more to learn, obviously, but this is why I'm doing it. These rings are just so much more than coin rings I thought coin rings could be. Alright guys, thanks for watching to the end of the video. Thanks for supporting my channel. And make sure you check out my website, ChangeYouCanWear.net to check out all the coin rings and other rings that I make. And get ready for a lot more cool videos like this. Alright guys, thanks for watching, and I'll catch you next time.