New Spinner Rings

This week I finished a trio of 'spinner' rings that feature patterned silver wide-band rings with a fun 'spinner' band on the outside that has an inlay of small Australian opal cabochons.

I have only made a handful of these- but they are pretty popular, probably in part to the pretty opal band. There are a lot of spinner rings being made, some very simple and some more involved. 

They may look complicated, but are not so much. The wider band was created by running the silver sheet through a rolling mill to pattern it. It was then cut and soldered to form a band. A friend of mine took a whole class on how to make one, but when she found out how simple they were, she wished she knew the 'trick' and could've saved her money on the class!! What's the trick??

Well, after the bands are made, the inner/wider band is flared by using a dapping punch- you take a larger diameter punch, and hammer the end of the ring to flare it. Then you put the band on, and repeat to the other end so the band doesn't fall off. Easy peasy!

The most complicated piece of making these rings was creating the opal band. I used 2 lengths of square wire and soldered them to a piece of silver sheet. The bands above are made from brass and Argentium silver. The Argentium bands did not require any solder- I just fused them. After they were attached to the base sheet, I trimmed the excess, formed into a ring, and made sure they fit around the wider band before soldering/fusing closed. I then blackened the channel and epoxied in the opals.