Getting hitched again come January, and decided to make my wedding rings this time. I am finally doing something with a chunk of titanium I've been carting around for some 30 years.
Not sure exactly what we want to do yet, but thinking of having the infinity symbol machined maybe 3 times equally spaced around each ring. Don't want them engraved, but milled with a small flat bottom mill. I can reference pics I found on the web showing more or less what I want.
I don't have a 4th axis setup and with all I have going on, building one and figuring out how to program it just isn't in the cards for me.
Please reply direct if you are capable of doing this and interested in working on my ring blanks.
That would make a nice ring. I bought a plain ring, nice and thick, wanted it to last. Ring did, marriage didn't and now I don't have a clue where the ring is. Strange how gold has no value sometimes.
Nice thought about the infinity symbol though. Tried to do an alt code 236 but Agent did not like it. I hope you manage to wear down the symbol in a long and happy marriage.
Wes
-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller
Sold my old wedding band, 1/5 of an ounce of 14k gold, only got $40 scrap value. Wasn't worth wasting a couple hours to try and get a few more dollars out of it. I'd decided not to try and recycle the gold into a new ring. New wife, new metal.
but Agent did
Started off wanting a Claddagh ring, she's of Gaelic decent. But with the price of gold, lordy, even basic rings are bloody expensive. Started looking around, and found some rings with the infinity symbol and decided I liked that. Then started thinking about making them and remembered the Ti stock.
This is sorta funny, I have my ring almost sized. As I was whittling out the ID, I'd radius the corner a bit with a scraper, and test. When I finally got close enough to slide it all the way on, I thought "no, need another .010 or so" and started to twist it off. OUCH! Yep, I'd forgotten to deburr the back side and I had a nice annular razor blade cutting into my finger. First thought was a trip to the ER to have it cut off before realizing I could do it here. But some lube and rocking it while pulling skin from the other side, I finally got it back off. Whew... Be a few days before the cuts heal enough I can resume sizing.
I know some folks here have done rotary axis milling on rings, I'm sure hoping one of them catches this thread and have an interest in taking on the job of milling them for me.
Thanks for the well wishes, this one will last or I wouldn't be doing it!
I made simple rings on our 25th wedding anniversary (well, I guess you'd call them bushings if they were parts instead of jewelry).
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Pretty basic work on the lathe with carbide tooling, if you keep the swarf from catching fire. Not unlike marriage itself.
I hand engraved (with a vibrating carbide-tipped engraver) text myself. Your CNC idea is nice, but if you want to have it all your work, then the text seems more appropriate, personal, and substantial. Also inobtrusive and durable. Leave room for later upgrades. Who knows what kind of nuke- u-lar robot-laser capabilities you'll have in 25 years.
Let me follow up my own post with a bit of old-timer advice: Don't invest any irreplaceable meaning in any given wedding ring, because they inevitably get lost, if you stay married long enough.
The only thing that kept me from getting straight A's in high school drafting was my penmanship. Or rather, lack of... I'd sure like something neater on a wedding band!
They don't have to be done 100% by me. Outside will have either the infinity symbol which will have to be done by someone else, or an inlaid gold band, which I can do.
Decided the text, a Gaelic phrase, will be engraved on the insides of the bands, but it can be done by any jewelry shop that does that sort of engraving.
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