I started to make a coin ring out of a 1958 Peso. As you can see from the photo to the left, things did not turn out as expected. The peso coin from 1957-1967 is 10% fine silver and 70% copper and 10% Zinc and Nickel. So I was a bit surprised with it cracked while I was stretching it. This combination seems somewhat brittle.
After I felt the tell-tale “give” on my ring stretcher, indicating the appearance of the crack, I quickly became somewhat discouraged. Then I had an idea. When I choose the hole punch size, I did so with a mind to preserve the eagle devouring the snake at the center of the reverse side. It’s such a cool symbol that I thought I would do something special with it. so with the center portion intact, I formulated a plan.
I continued to form the broken ring using the Swedish Wrap Technique created by Mikael Möller, with Jason’s amazing tools from jasonsworks.com. This allowed me to get the broken cone shaped into a ring shape. It worked like a charm, though I could only reduce, not enlarge.
After I got the ring formed, I was ready to grind and solder. I ground the area at the crack flat, then filled it with a little solder. (It was already a pretty good fit…the photo exaggerates the mis-alignment.) Then I ground the surface of the plug that was to fit against the ring.
I have to admit, soldering the two together was a little more challenging than I expected, but I finally got the two parts soldered together. In the end, I think I came up with a solution that really works. It turns out that the finished ring might be better because of the accident.
Leave a Reply