Stacking rings ala János

This tutorial by János Varga was originally posted on Flickr.


These are my first stacking rings. The idea came from Chris. They are iron rings with brass, silver and copper inlays.



STEP 1: I started with an iron water pipe. Here in Italy (and also in Hungary) they used to make the water pipes from iron. They are just about normal ring sizes, and they are a good quality of iron. Here I have cut the groove for the inlay.

STEP 2: Then I cut off a section, here it is.

STEP 3: I twisted a piece of copper (brass, silver) wire into the groove.



STEP 5: At this point I have cut off the twisted bit of the wire.



STEP 6: I hammered the ends into the groove.



STEP 7: Then I hammered the ring at the part where the wire was twisted to close the inlay.



STEP 8: Between the stages I annealed the whole piece. Also, at the end the oxidation from heating gives contrast between the grooves, the dots, and the shiny surface.



STEP 9: With a punch and an old chisel I made the patterns.



STEP 10: I filed off the edge of the ring because the inlaid wire disappeared under the iron. Then comes a careful finish with all of it's stages.

Finished!