240/365 ebony

sterling silver, ebony, brass, copper, saltwater pearl

The making of this ring was a comedy of errors. I fabricated the bezel first and cut the wood to fit, which was a mistake. The first piece was too small so I made the second piece a little too large and sanded it back which took forever, and the fit is not so great.


Next I inlaid (riveted, really) the wire into the wood, the wood split in one place but I was able to fix it with glue. I sanded it to a nice finish, then proceeded to solder the bezel on wrong - so the ebony piece only fit in upside-down. I suppose I could have made a new bezel, but I chose to finish the backside of the ebony, which had been rough sawn but not planed smooth, so that took forever.


I made a band from two round wires and soldered a strut between them. As I was soldering the band onto the ring, the strut desoldered and the band fell apart. I remade the band and tried again, this time with white out painted on the strut. It also fell apart, and one wire from the band ended up soldered to the back of the ring. So I stretched that wire out some and soldered the other end down, voila.


I applied tung oil finish to the ebony and let it dry about an hour, not really long enough for either the wood glue or the finish to dry, but the ring must be completed in one day, we'll see what happens. After epoxying the wood in I set the pearl on it's post. And you know what? I hate that pearl. Hate. It ruins the design. Bleh. I have to walk away for a while.