Upcycled Sterling Fork

I was up in Pennsylvania about a month ago and made a point of visiting some of the different antique shops up there. One of the items I bought was a sterling silver three pronged fork. I knew as soon as I saw it that something cool could be made. 

Today I started to play around with the fork and decided on making it into a ring. I've done spoons and I like the whole silverware theme. 

1. First I sawed the head of the fork off of the stem.

2. Second, I shaped the stem into a ring by hammering it around a ring mandrel.

3. The ends of the stem were then soldered together to make it a continuous circle.

Fork Stem Hammered into Ring Shape

4. After the ends were soldered, smoothed the edges out with a diamond file and 400 grit sandpaper.

5. The next step was to solder the the head of the fork onto the newly made band. This step proved difficult because of the difficulty of getting the band to stay on the part of the fork head that I wanted it to sit. In the end I was able to do it. 

 

Fork Head Soldered to Band

Fork Head Soldered to Band

6. I then soldered an oval, fine silver bezel cup to the middle of the fork head in order to set a stone onto the ring.

About to Set the Bezel Cup onto the Fork

Bezel Cup Has Been Fluxed, Solder Placed Under Cup, Ready to Heat

Bezel Cup After Soldering

7. The ring is then put into the pickle for about five minutes, then brought out and rinsed. The stone is ready to be set. 

8. The stone is gently set into the bezel. Using a bezel pusher, the lips of the cup are pushed over onto the stone, keeping it in place. It is important to overlap each push to prevent marking the metal.

Pushing the Bezel

Pushing the Bezel

 9. After the the bezel has been pushed in several times it's ready to be messed with. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the prongs. I decided to try curling them up to see how it looked. I ended up not liking it so i put them back. In the process the prongs got dented up quite a bit so to make it look better I went over the whole of the fork head surface with the flex shaft to give it a nice texture.

Ring After Being Textured With the Flex Shaft

10. Now it's time to give the ring a patina. I am fond of the product, Silver Black. Like the name says, it turns silver black. That may not sound too nice but once it gets shined up with some steel wool and then thrown into the tumbler it looks very nice.

After Applying the Silver Black

11.After going over it a bit with some steel wool it's ready to go into the tumbler. The tumbler is a machine that shines the metal up beautifully. The ring gets left in the tumbler for about two hours and then it's ready to wear!

The Finished Product!

This ring is a new twist on a classic idea and I'm very happy with the way it turned out!!

I'm So Super Excited!