 Hey guys, welcome back to another video. Today I have my jewelry table set up because I'm going to be doing a video showing you how to make a simple hammered sterling silver ring. I posted a picture on Instagram showing you guys a ring that I made and asked you guys if you'd be interested in watching a video where I show you the ring making process. And so many of you guys replied, yes yes yes we want to see it. So I of course had to do it. First I was a little bit hesitant because I was thinking well this doesn't really have anything to do with health so it'll be kind of a random video. But then I was thinking actually it has everything to do with health because being creative and doing something you love is probably one of the healthiest things that you can do for yourself. And I know for myself I find jewelry making to be very calming and very stressed for leaving and it's just awesome having a beautiful ring to wear at the end or to give to someone at the end. So I'd love jewelry making. I think everyone should make jewelry. And I mean you don't have to have a set up like me with a torch and working with sheet metal. You can do wire wrapping, you can do bead work. There's all sorts of jewelry making that you can do. And it's just really really fun. So yeah maybe this video will even inspire you to make your own jewelry if you're not making it already. And I am just going to go ahead and get started and I hope you enjoy. Alright so the first step to making a ring is measuring. So here I have this lovely ring size and I'm just going to try on the different rings until I find a size that fits comfortably. Now that I know my ring size I'm going to look at this handy chart which will tell me what length I need to cut my piece of metal in order for it to be my ring size after I'm finished making the ring. And since I'm hammering this ring I'm actually going to choose a size that's half or even one ring size smaller because once you start hammering the metal the ring will actually stretch and get larger. Now I'm going to grab my piece of sheet metal. I'm using 18 gauge sterling silver for this tutorial and I'm going to make a mark using a sharpie to measure out the length that I need my ring to be. And then I'm going to take the sharp pen thingy. I don't actually know the name of it. And I'm just going to scratch a guideline onto the metal and this is going to help me saw a straight line. I recommend using a square like this because it's very precise and will give you a perfectly straight line which is very helpful when making jewelry. Now that I'm done measuring I'm going to take my saw, run it through a bit of beeswax for lubrication and then start sawing the metal using the line that we made as a guide. Now once I'm finished sawing I like to put the piece of metal into this clamp and I just go over the edges with a file to make sure everything is even and straight. And I really really love using this clamp because it just makes jewelry making a lot easier. Now in the next step you will need a torch because we are going to anneal the metal. So annealing is basically where you heat the metal up to a certain temperature and then let it cool. And this just makes the metal more soft and pliable so it's easier to cut and to form into different shapes. So this step is very important because it will allow us to bend the metal into a ring. After you're done annealing you need to place your piece of metal into a pickling solution to remove any surface oxidation. And pickling solutions are basically a strong chemical bath and since I'm super paranoid about using chemicals I like to just make this easy do it yourself. Non toxic pickling solution. All you need to do is add one cup of white vinegar and one tablespoon of salt and just heat it up in a little crock pot and it works really really well. So I just placed my piece of metal into the crock pot and now I'm going to wait 10 minutes and then remove it. And as you can see the oxidation is gone. Oh and always place the piece of metal into some baking soda and water after to neutralize it. Now comes the fun part. I'm going to just take some flat half round pliers and I'm going to form the metal into a ring. And you want to make sure that the ends fit together seamlessly so you might need to file them a bit but you really want no light to shine through the seam. Now comes the soldering and this is where the magic happens. Soldering is basically where you're joining pieces of metal together by melting and flowing of filler metal through the joint. So to solder you will need some flux which will help the solder flow and you will also need some solder metal. So I cut my solder up into little pieces and then I just apply some flux to the seam of my ring and heat it up a bit. And then I start applying pieces of solder using tweezers and I usually dip the little pieces of solder into flux before arranging them on the seam because I find it helps some stick better. And now I'm going to take my torch and evenly heat up the ring. And once the ring is heated all the way through I focus the heat directly onto those little pieces of solder until they start to flow. And there it goes as you can see it kind of turned into a puddle. And now the seam should look like this and the metal is ready to be formed into a perfect ring shape. But first I'm going to just place it into the pickle again to remove any oxidation or flux residue. So now to form the ring you will need a raw hide mallet and a ring mandrel. And basically I just start forming the ring on the mandrel by hammering it with the raw hide mallet. And once it's perfectly formed I'm just going to anneal it one last time because when you hammer and work the metal a lot it becomes hard. So I just want to keep it soft by heating it up and I will also place it in the pickle again. Now it's time for filing so I'm just going to file the ring until it's all smooth and you can't see that seam anymore. And after I use the hand file I just use some sandpaper and smooth it down even more. Once you're filing and polishing is complete it's time to hammer your ring. So I just use this ball pin hammer and start hammering away at the ring and it just gives it a beautiful, beautiful texture. Once I finish hammering the ring I just smooth down the inside again and at this point the ring is pretty much done but I am going to stick it in my jewelry tumbler. I own a lortone tumbler and it polishes, cleans, removes tarnish and just makes your jewelry so shiny and beautiful. So the tumbler has this steel shot in it which will physically polish the jewelry and then I just fill the container up with a bit of water and some bar soap. And then stick it on the spinny thing and let the tumbler do its work and after a few hours of tumbling you will be left with the most beautiful shiny jewelry you have ever seen and now your hammered ring is complete. So that is how I make a simple hammered sterling silver ring. I hope you guys had fun watching that and now I want to do a giveaway for you guys because you guys honestly bring me so much happiness every day. You don't even understand reading your comments it just completely makes my day every day. So I really wanted to do a giveaway for you guys and I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity because I can just give you guys one of the hammered silver rings that I made. So to get into the giveaway all you need to do is comment down below and tell me something about yourself. Anything about yourself maybe like what's your favorite jewelry design or something would be I don't know anything. And then give this video a thumbs up and be subscribed to my channel. So those three things comment subscribe and give this video a thumbs up. And then at the end of one week I will choose one of you guys at random in the comments and then I will send you a message into your inbox and find out your ring size so I can make sure that I'm sending you the exact ring size. And yeah, I think that is it. So that is how you enter the giveaway and again I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Give it a thumbs up, subscribe all that stuff and I will see you next time. Bye!