A little help needed please.

[Kayscornishcreations]

Hi Everyone

this is my first ask, so all replies gratefully accepted.

I have been asked to make 2 wedding rings for a friend and her husband they are celebrating 25 years of marriage and renewing their vows...in June.
She has asked me if I could make two silver rings and stamp them with Darren 25 and Cheryl 25.

I currently make lots of rings, bangles and necklaces from my home workshop, Im what could be classed as a novice as only been playing around for a couple of years with Silver.

I am unsure what shape or width size silver wire to buy as its a minefield for me to choose from ......Help please !!!

Thank you in advance for all reply's.

Michaela

[Dennis]

Hi Michaela,
First you need to decide what profile of wire: oval, D shaped high dome (height = half the width), or rectangular.

Then for a woman, 3-4mm in width according to the chunkiness of the fingers. Thickness no more than 2.0 mm
For a man about 4-5mm. Thickness no more than 2.5 mm.

If you are not on a tight budget you would be well advised to use 9ct white gold, with medium solder of the same. This I have watched for 20 years in daily service. It does have a slight yellow cast, but is beautiful in its own right and hard wearing.

Silver is not ideal for daily wear and can soon look a mess. I would also urge you to make prototypes in copper for approval, even if you only use round wire or strip cut from sheet.

While family and friends like you to make their rings for various reasons, you might find it more economical to buy them ready made from Cookson. Dennis.

[Kayscornishcreations]

Many thanks Dennis for all of your help.

I was thinking around those sort of with sizes but I just worried about the stamping not fitting onto the width of the rings.
I will be buying some new stamps as my present ones are a little too large for stamping these rings.
I quite like the D shape but I was unsure about stamping this shape.

I did think about white gold but I'm under instruction from my friend that they must be silver, it is their 25th year of marriage hence the silver rings.

Again many, many thanks Dennis your advice had given me something to go on.

Best wishes

Michaela

[enigma]

I think the smallest stamps you can get are 4mm ?
I regularly stamp 5mm by 2.5mm flat and 6mm by 3mm D shape inside but 4mm by 2mm D shape is really too small unless its just a couple of letters .
However 4mm by 2mm D shape is definitely the biggest size that is ideal for most women.

[Kayscornishcreations]

Thank you Enigma.
Your reply has been a great help.

[trialuser]

3mm stamps seem to be available :)
http://www.littlefreckle.co.uk/impressart-basic-economy-bridgette-lowercase-metal-stamp-set-3mm/

And 2mm just from a quick look on amazon

But the obvious answer would be ask your friends what they want

[Kayscornishcreations]

Thank you Trialuser.

and thanks for the link. ;)

[enigma]

Well done Trialuser, I had looked before and failed to find them so wrongly concluded that they didn't come smaller

[mizgeorge]

I have several sets of 2mm, a couple in 1.5 (including a lower case) and some 1mm upper case.

For basic stamps, rather than fancy fonts, these guys are particularly good value

http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/acatalog/NUMBER___LETTER_STAMPS.html

[Kayscornishcreations]

Thank you for sharing the link Mizgeorge.
Another great site that I hadnt heard of, had a good look through and their prices are really competitive.

Many thanks for the tip.

[LydiaNiz]

I have some 1.5mm Gothic Beadsmith stamps that are good - find you need silver 1.5mm wider than letter size to allow for spread when you stamp. A few sites sell them if you pop it into Google. D shape you can stamp, but expect possible distortion, otherwise you could go for flat bands, and select the width of metal you want. I'd certainly not try and stamp anything less than 1.0mm thick, as it will be very noticeable to the other side.

[Kayscornishcreations]

Thanks Lydia. Im going to have a good look around at my options this week....half term and not at work so I have time to look properly...lol.

Many thanks for replying.