Mantelring/Hollow Signet Ring
1. Make a template, trace it onto the silver plate (t=1 mm), and saw the piece (the outer plate) out.
2. Use dapping punches and different types of stakes and mandrels to shape the outer plate. The important part to this step is that the ends for soldering come together.
3. Solder. Use a wire to tie together the ring. File away the excess solder.
4. Continue shaping the ring with different kinds of anvils and stakes. The one in the photo below works especially well.
5. Saw off another piece of silver plate (the inside plate, t=0,6 mm) and bend it using the flat/half-round pliers.
6. File the inside edge of the outer plate so that the inside plate fits nice and snug (I forgot this step, which led to problems with holes later on).
7. Stamp the inside plate with the correct stamps before soldering it into the outer plate. Hollow objects are not easy to stamp. At all. (I know beach I also made this mistake.)
8. Solder the inside plate into the outside plate. Saw off the protruding ends and file the edge into shape.
9. Put the ring (hole down) on a small piece of silver plate (the face plate) and solder. Saw off the excess of the silver plate. After this point the ring is (or should be) a hollow closed space, so it should not be heated again.
10. File, grind and polish the surface of the ring.
At this point I had to fix a hole using some wire (it ended up too big to fix with only solder after my first attempt at filling the hole).
11. I chose to make a hammer surface. It does not work well with a hollow object. I had to use a lot of force, which changed the shape of the ring slightly.
12. Oxidise (creating a black patina) the ring. Then polish the inside and the face of the ring. Polish the ridges created by hammering using the polishing steel (the tool in the background of the picture above).
13. Engrave the face of the ring.