How to Make a Gold Ring

If you have a lot of old gold jewelry or gold nuggets lying around your house, you can make a new gold ring out of them. Making a ring using scraps of gold is something you can do in your own home, whether you want to do this as a hobby or to start a business of making and selling hand-crafted jewelry. By using a few materials that are readily available in the market, you can create your own gold ring in just less than a day.

Things You'll Need

• Gold
• Ring molds or castings
• Ceramic crucible tongs
• Butane torch or oxy-acetate torch
• Welding coveralls
• Welding mask
• Welding gloves

Instructions

1. Design the ring by drawing the shape on a piece of paper. For example, you can create an engagement ring, a wedding band or ring. You may want to start with a simple design for your first time so that you do not have to deal with the intricate designs or decorations on a complicated design. Practice with one or two plain rings before you start adding more details. If you want to skip the design part and just use the ready-made ring mold or casting, you can skip to step 3.

2. Create a ring mold or casting based on your design. There are rubber or wax molds that you can use to create your ring mold or castings. Check on the resources below for a company that can do this for you. You can also buy ready-made ring molds, which means you would need not do step 1 since this mold would already be designed and ready to use.

3. Gather some gold. Collect scraps or broken pieces of old jewelry made of gold. You can also use gold nuggets or gold bar if you happen to have them in your possession. If you want to know how much in carat you will be creating, you can have your gold appraised with a jeweler before you start.

4. Place the gold in the ceramic crucible.

5. Wear your welding coverall, mask and gloves. These will protect you from the heat, sparks and flames which can cause injury.

6. Turn on the butane or acetylene torch.

7. Heat the crucible with the flame, carefully pointing the flame toward the gold until the gold materials are melted.

8. Pour the melted gold immediately into the ring mold or casting, then allow to cool.

9. Remove the ring from the mold once it cools down and solidifies.

10. Inspect the final product by looking through the ring hole, trying it on and looking at the surface.

Tips & Warnings

• You can reheat or melt the gold again if you are not satisfied with the end product. Bear in mind that repeated melting may decrease the chemical value of the gold.

• Be careful when handling the blow torch. Always wear the protective goggles, gloves and attire when doing this project. Gold melts at a high temperature, about 745 degrees F at an average.

• When using the oxy-acetylene torch to melt gold dust, try to lower the flame or heat and point it a little farther so as not to blow away the gold dust.

• Remove the stones or other accessories from the gold jewelry before melting to avoid damaging them.

Resources

• Castings and Ring Molds