From Russia With Love.

[Dennis]

The Russian wedding ring has a religious significance, but it is also a very decorative piece of jewellery. Traditionally it is made in three colours of gold, but a less expensive version could be entirely of silver.
The three parts are made separately , three sizes larger than normal and finished completely. Here I have used 3.2 x 1.6 mm D shaped wire. Two are then cut at the solder joint with a fine saw blade, opened by a sideways movement to preserve the curve and then linked and re-soldered one at a time. The fit is quite snug as the components tend to cling to the fingers and to take the ring off they must be gently rolled over each other. This rolling action seems to give the ring a life of its own. If using gold, it might be worth doing an experiment with a cheaper metal to verify the fit, as resizing would involve dismantling the whole thing.
Below, a nine carat version I made some time ago and a plain silver one just completed, to road test this post. Dennis.

[jille]

thank you Dennis for posting this info, i have wanted to make myself one of these rings for a while
jill

[FacetNation]

russian bands are such a great project - the results are very satisfying. I use the jinks mcgrath rings book for my instructions, and teach this as a project at my silver jewellery class.
question for you dennis - the same carat gold, but different colours - are they the same hardness? so would they wear ok rubbing next to each other? i have always been told that engagement & wedding bands are best off the same metal, so that they wear at the same rate, but working only in silver at the moment i dont know too much about gold & its properties. something i have pondered about 3 colour russian bands!

[Dennis]

Dear X,
The one you see was made for one of my daughters in 2004 and she wears it quite frequently without signs of damage. In fact I have found 9 carat an ideal upgrade from silver for her as she lives in a hot climate and it is both tough and tarnish resistant.
You will note that Jinks suggests a heavier gage of metal and she uses a lot of maths, which I am much against, because after a couple of cuts to align the edges for soldering the maths goes out of the window. I always make rings about a size too small, around a mandrel, and then stretch them to size on a ring stretcher. I find this efficient and fool proof, but people love bashing things and then filing and polishing the damage. kind regards, Dennis.

[caroleallen]

It's funny you mention Russian wedding rings as I had a student make one on Saturday. She had to take it apart twice and bash it to within an inch of its life to get the right size. She was thrilled with it once it was finished. I also made my daughter one to wear on her thumb about 5 years ago and it's the only piece of jewellery that she wears all the time.

[wheely]

Is it wise to make the bands a smidgen larger than your actual size?

[Dennis]

....she had to take it apart twice and bash it to within an inch of its life to get the right size. [/QUOTE]
Yes Carole, that's why I am so in favour of the upright ring stretcher. You just drop the ring on, work the lever and the ring drops down to the right size. No sweat and no damage to the ring except for a few shiny marks on the inside. Unfortunately jewellers don't seem to feel that they've made jewellery unless they beat the hell out of something and the spend an afternoon cleaning up the damage. I have a long-winded post about this, and I shall put it on next week to get it out of my system. Kind regards, Dennis.