I work in silver and have no experience in gold. The advice I need is how far I can expect to safely stretch a 5mm by 2mm 14 carat gold comfort fit wedding band. It is a size 81/2 and has to go to 101/2. I would do this on a mandrel with either a nylon or rawhide hammer. I certainly appreciate the great advice I have received from this wonderful site all these years.
Dennis
I’d not recommend going over a 1/2 size, and this is annealing it several times. Two sizes is a lot. Make sure you rotate the ring, doing one side then the other, hammering all around the ring. Good luck with it.
Tjones
buy a new ring? fit it on a different finger? slip it on a chain & make it a pendant? loose weight? (sorry to be sassy) not worth the aggravation
Thank you both for the advice. I had gone ahead and tried. Had annealed twice and only got a 1/4 size increase, and that gain was with some very hard pounding. I put it on a mandrel and inserted that into a padded vise. It might be enough for a finger that may shrink a bit in the winter. We’ll see. Meanwhile I have to re-polish.
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
Sorry for being so late to add in here.
I also do not do a ton of ring sizing but from my limited experience based on ring thickness you can go up a bit in silver any of the golds and pd and plat with some experience and annealing.
For any ring with that big of a size difference (from an 8.5 to a 10.5) I think it is best practice to cut open the band and solder in a new piece. It seems like most jewelers go with rectangle sizing stock that can be shaped to the profile.
I hope this helps,
Christine
hi,
ok, so based on a chart i have:
(2mm thickness)
size 8-1/2 is about 64.1mm blank length
size 10-1/2 would be about 69.1mm blank length
so that is about 5mm larger…
julie
Thank you Julie and Christine. Both of you have been helpful.
As noted, “stretching” a 5x2mm up 2 sizes is asking a lot, especially if you are using a hammer and mandrel.
I use a “kagan” (sp?) ring stretcher to stretch up seamless wedding bands, and there is a bit of “art” involved. With enough annealing and caution, I say that a wedding band can be turned into a hoola hoop, but a VERY thin one…
You need to “feel” the metal stretch, or feel the resistance, and stop, so you can re-anneal. Each stretch will slightly thin your wedding band, so 2 sizes truly is asking a great deal of this ring, but it can be done.
Generally I would only anneal and stretch a wedding band that far if it had a complicated design, and if it was a substantial chunk of metal, where the thinning would be minimally noticeable.