Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Low Tech ring sizing

Sorry this is late posting today. Apparently the postal service of another country, that shall remain nameless, has delivered a package of my jewelry to the wrong address. I've spent the morning sorting out the mess.

Onto more interesting things...I stumbled upon this low tech, minimal tool way to size polymer rings.


I've seen it suggested that you form a ring around some sort of tube like a piece copper pipe or some other bit of hardware. Problem is, this limits the size to whatever tubes are available.

Depending on your ring design, this is a method that might help you and will allow you to make any size ring you want and cost you little to nothing.

Basically, you draw a correctly sized circle onto a piece of card stock and then you stand a circle of clay directly over the circle and bake it that way.

First you'll need something to make circles the correct size. Ring sizes are only millimeters apart so measuring correctly is important. You can find ring size charts online at Jewelry Mall and a really detailed one with international sizing at Blue Nile.  I also have a ring template that lets me trace whole sizes but the detailed measurements provided by the charts would also allow you to made your own circle templates with whole and half sizes with a compass.

I got my ring template at a local PMC supplier. Its from Cool Tools.

Cut a rectangle of clay, slight longer than the measurement of the appropriate ring size onto a sheet of clay on your pasta machines thickest setting. So for instance, a size 7 ring, if laid out flat would be 54mm long and so I cut a rectangle about 70-80mm long.


Trace the corresponding size circle onto card stock and wrap the clay around it with the inside edge of the clay just outside the line. 


Gently coax the clay together at the seam. I prefer to just get the clay to stick (by holding it in place for about 30 seconds with minimal pushing) and back fill and clean up the seam after the first backing so that  I won't end up distorting the circle. When the clay sticks, gently re-from to match the circle and bake right on the card stock. This would make for a very simple ring OR serve as a properly sized inner core or base. 


Let me know if you try this out!  I'm really happy with how these are working out for me so far.

13 comments:

  1. You're welcome Lupe! Let me know how it works out for you.

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  2. i am going to try this! thanks for sharing.

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  3. I noticed that the polymer clay is reduced after cooling. It is difficult to guess the exact size.

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    1. I haven't had a problem with the polymer clay reducing. I would say to make sure you are forming the ring on the outside of the circle because in ring sizing even a millimeters will matter.
      Perhaps trying making the right a quarter or half size larger than the size you. Try the ring sizer at BlueNile.com to get the exact measurement of the quarter and half sizes.
      Hope that helps Katya!

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    2. Thanks for the tips, Genevieve! I'll try and I'll let you know! I am very glad that you feel better! Hope that your family is healthy! Good luck :)

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  4. If this were just the base, would you add onto it and still able to bake the entire ring?

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    1. Yes Seven of Buttercups. You can add to it before or after baking because you can re-bake indefinitely with polymer. I bake the bases and then add "decoration" and bake again because its so much easier.

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  5. Genevieve, jewelry sites on the web will send you free ring sizers, and most have a button to click to request one. (They're free; they want you to be able to order rings online.) They're COMPLETE with ALL ring sizes and you can snap off the one(s) you wanna work with (or leave 'em all stuck together). Super-handy!

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  6. I forgot to mention that I don't trust seams in rings our hands do so much, I worry they won't hold up), so what I do is to lay the sizer on a block of clay, and then using a stiff needle, I trace around the inside of the sizer so that my ring comes out in one piece. I then cut away clay, making the outer part the desired shape, cure it, and then add the "pretty" parts.

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