cold enamel inlay steel ring

stainless steel, nugold, brass, epoxy, enamel powder,crushed black jasper, ring size 10

wood and metal brooch

brooch Rose Wood, Nickelsilver, petrified wood crushed,lapis lazuli crushed,Shellac pieces,epoxy,pens, acrylic, brass,Heatite crushed and hand cut stone

I tried some things on this one. New for me is the use of wood combined with metal in a sort of a big bezel. I also did some carving on the wood.

Nanntan meteorite steel ring

 

stainless steel, welding steel, meteorite pieces Nantan, epoxy, lapis lazuli 4mm, red shellac, ring size 9.5

Iron from the earth and from behind Mars together in a ring.

the Shellac is under the epoxy in the inlay and gives it a slightly dark red shimmer. It has a color similar to garnet.

This ring belongs to the "Cozmic Blues Collection"

https://sites.google.com/site/thecozmicbluescollection/ 

custom made copper ring

copper 16 ga, ring size 8, Lapis lazuli 10mm

see options for custom made rings at

http://www.wolfgangschweizer.com/artforsale.php

(scroll down on destination page)

copper and brass ring with inlay

ring copper,brass,silver,epoxy,enamel, spinel3mm  ring size 8

ring Laucherthal

  welding steel hammered, stainless steel inside ring, eopxy, Bean ore from my hometown Laucherthal in Germany (thanks to my parents for sending it!), crushed hematite iron ore 
ring size 10

I will offer a new kind of custom rings on my webpage soon.
People can send me personal stuff to embed in their new ring.

Bohnerz, Bean Ore (limonite) from Germany
Around the town where I grew up you can find limonite (Ochre)  in form of small balls everywhere on the fields. You just need to bow down and collect it fro the surface of the earth. The Celtic people living in the area fro around 800 BC on already used this iron ore, and they exported the iron they made from it to Rome and Greece. Greek pottery was found on the fields around a big old Celtic city. The Romans later used the ore also, and when they were gone, the Germanic Alemans did the same. Later the prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen founded one of the first steel mills with a furnace there, and the town growing around it was called Laucherthal after the river Lauchert (1708 AC). The former steel mill still exists. It produces high tech metal casting and other stuff now.

rich low brass and stainless steel ring with azurite inlay

rich low brass, stainless steel, epoxy, enamel powder, yellow brass, crushed azurite
size 8

I choose stainless steel for the inside ring for stability reasons

stainless steel and copper ring with epoxy cold enamel and stone inlay

stainless steel, copper, silver wire, epoxy, enamel, Swarovski crystals, crushed lapis lazuli,garnet and black jasper
ring size 6.75

brooch in style of epoxy painting and ring with epoxy and stone inlay

 41-brooch nickelsilver, red brass, copper and aluminum embossed, epoxy, enamel, Swarovski crystals, green marble hand cut and painted
pin on back

I used the same techniques as I use for my epoxy paintings
https://sites.google.com/site/resinpaintings/

I made a test ring to check if the epoxy inlay technique can be used in future for making more rings or if it is only good for brooches and necklaces. If the ring doesn`t get wrecked at work for a few days, I suppose it is stable enough.
 
copper, rich low brass, epoxy, black enamel powder, crushed marble and gold calcite
ring size 10

brazed ring with epoxy inlay

 welding steel-brazed brass, cooper, steel parts-Amber4mm, crushed lapis lazuli epoxy inlay, ring size 7.25

 I used steel as bottom plate for brazing the other metals on, because the ring has to be sturdy. The epoxy inlay with the crushed lapis lazuli would crack if the ring gets deformed.

 I don`t know up to now how durable such epoxy inlays are. I might make another ring and carry it around myself at work for a while.
If the ring is only used for non work activities I guess there will be no problem, as epoxy is used in jewelry making as one of the strongest adhesives.

 in this picture the "marbling" of the composite metal shows. I put copper parts, brass parts and steel parts on a steel plate. Then I brazed everything together (I heated up everything very high with a MAP gas torch, put a salt as flux on it and melted a part of a brass rod onto the whole thing, until everything was covered). Later I had to file it down to make it even.
Problem is, that it is not completely possible to avoid small holes between the metals. These come from the vaporizing flux, which produces gas, that can get captured in the melted metal. Later you have small holes in the piece of jewelry. These have to be grinded out.
Maybe heating it up higher and longer will help avoiding the holes.

mixed metals brazed ring

I tried something new with this one. I cut pieces of copper, brass and steel onto a steel sheet. Then I brazed everything together with brass. After that I filed and grinded the surface flat. Then I made a ring of this metal combination. It is the outside ring. The inside ring was soldered on. It is brass to avoid rusting of the steel (which is the bottom layer of the outside ring) on the finger.
The outside ring shows a shimmering of all the colors of the metals that were used.
I also tried to do a rudimentary form of Damascene inlay. The two copper bars left side from the Spinel were set into undercut space on the outside ring. Then the copper wire was hammered into the undercut space. No solder holds the copper in the space.

Damascene inlay:
http://www.philamuseum.org/booklets/7_43_80_1.html


Ring redone:
I removed the epoxy with the red enamel in it:

custom made Bronze ring

 

custom ring Bronze, lapis lazuli 10mm

ring size 10
the Bronze is 16 gauge thick

these custom made rings are sturdy and for every day wear.
available in various metals and sizes and with various stones
$20+$5 shipping
http://schweizerarts.blogs​pot.com/

these rings made of copper and its alloys have s special property:
they tarnish in contact with skin. This happens mostly in the beginning when you wear them. Later the effect disappears. This is the first strange phenomenon that I and other people notice usually.

Another phenomenon is that the rings tarnish very much if you are about to get a cold. The tarnishing starts already when you don`t even realize the first symptoms of getting sick. The tarnishing appears then even on areas that are not so much in contact with skin. I couldn`t find a good explanation for this effect up to now, but other people tell about the same observance.
I use this effect meanwhile to take homeopathic pills made from elderberries as soon as I notice an unusual tarnishing of the my rings. I could push back already almost completely a few colds by doing this.
The colds didn`t really break out, or they were less bad than usually.

When I was a child my grandmother had self made elderberry juice in the basement. It is known for a long time as a medicine against flu. Studies proof that it has an effect. The natural juice additionally has much vitamin C.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go​v/pubmed/11399518

You can get the pills at wal mart meanwhile.

steel and brass ring

welding steel hammered, brazed brass, enamel, epoxy, spinel synth3mm, brass inside ring, size 7

silver and brass ring

Sterling silver, brass, garnet 4mm, Spinel synth.3mm
ring size 7