Making Stainless Steel Wedding Rings With Copper Inlay

Welcome to make something i'm David Picciuto. 
today i'm going to show you how to make these   stainless steel and copper wedding rings and 
this video is brought to us by squarespace so every year my wife and i we retire our wedding 
rings and i make new ones and it is that time of   year again i'm actually three weeks late but 
uh it's time to make new ones and i just got   this mini lathe this will basically be my first 
mini lathe project i did do some playing around   and some tinkering i am not a machinist or an 
expert if you want to learn more about getting   started with this go check out this playlist by 
blondie hacks it is absolutely fantastic and talks   about everything you would ever want to know about 
getting started with a mini lathe it is so good go   check that out now you're probably wondering why 
did i pick this particular machine that is all due   to this video right here this guy did a bunch of 
research and came to the conclusion this is the   best of the chinese import machines so i watched 
that video i trusted him he had some good points   here i am and then this year for the very 
first time i'm going to make the rings out   of this stainless steel tubing that i got from 
mcmaster carr this is almost the right size so   i just have to bore it out a little bit and then 
work on the outside size if you're wondering why   i'm not using titanium for this i would guess 
that most machinists would say please don't use   titanium for your very first lathe project they 
would probably also not suggest using stainless   steel for your very first lathe project but here i 
am i like to dive in head first and just go right   at it so i've done some tests i've played around 
with this it's going to work just fine that's   enough talking it's time to start cutting i'm not 
going to give you every little detail of what i'm   doing i would just kind of give you an overview 
and hopefully this inspires you to maybe dive   into something like this or just to give you 
some ideas the very first thing i have to do   is chop this down into a smaller piece and then 
chuck this up into the chuck it it's too it's   actually too big to go into the side here so 
i have to cut it down the smaller the piece   the more rigidity that i am going to have in here 
so i want to cut this down as basically as small   as i can get it while there's still enough room to 
keep my my hot dogs away from the chuck so we got   that cut on the band saw i only have these insert 
bits i don't have any of the high speed tooling   i'm just using what i have i'm not sure which 
one is actually better for this operation i am   taking all the necessary safety precautions but 
that doesn't necessarily mean that i know what   i'm doing so we are going to face this off and 
clean up the cut that we made on the band saw so now i have this boring bar installed 
and i've got this zeroed out at zero and   i'm going to bore this out until it gets 
to my wife's ring size i'm going to do   mine separate since i have a slightly different 
size finger and i will start from the inside   and then come out and i know that i only have 
to go in seven millimeters deep i am starting   from the inside and then boring out that way 
the chips have a place to go although this is   a tube and the chips could go the other way so i 
really think i can go either way and i'm hoping   that you guys give me some great advice down 
in the comments that way we can learn together this is not the right tool 
to measure the inside there   but it is what i have and we are at the size that 
i need so now we can start working on the outside we're using some of this daikum layout fluid   and we're going to mark that's probably too much 
whoa then i'm going to mark where i want to create   a groove that we're going to fill in with epoxy 
in a later step i'm just going to go from 0 to 2.2   millimeters and then just keep going back 
and forth until i get the groove that i want we have the cutoff blade in here and we're 
going to cut the ring off this will be the   last operation on this lathe for this 
ring this is probably the most taxing   operation on this machine luckily 
we only have to go so deep i have been told that that parting 
operation can be dangerous if that   cut off blade breaks apart so i had a face 
shield on so that came out pretty good so   now i need to make a second one for my size 
and then we'll start working on the inlay for the inlay i took a copper pipe and i ran 
a file on it and collected all the shavings   and then mixed it with this uv epoxy and this 
cures with a uv light so the reason i have it   spinning here on the lathe is just to keep 
it from dripping and building up on one side   and then once i plug in this uv light and expose 
it it'll cure in a few minutes and then the next   steps is to file off the edges and do some final 
shaping and polishing but before i do that i would   like to tell you about today's sponsor and that 
is squarespace if you are a maker like me and   you make small crafts like this maybe you want to 
sell that maybe you need a website as a portfolio   to get new clients squarespace is the perfect 
place to do that i have been using squarespace   for years way before they were a sponsor and i 
used to be a professional web developer before   making silly youtube videos if i know how to make 
a website from scratch why would i ever want to   use squarespace that's because their templates are 
absolutely beautiful the platform is super easy to   use you can sell both digital and physical items 
and if you have a bunch of social media sites like   i do you can bring all of those feeds into your 
website you have one central place to show off   all of your work there are so many options you 
have when it comes to your squarespace store   you can sell both digital and physical items and i 
used to have my t-shirts printed here locally and   then i would ship them myself as the business grew 
i wanted to move that over to a fulfillment center   called printful and printful seamlessly integrates 
into my squarespace site they work together   in addition to that fulfillment center 
there are things that i actually do ship   from my house like the books because i signed 
them and then shipped them off myself and then   i had digital items as well like pdf plans so i 
have three different sources for my store that   just work together it just works that's what i'm 
trying to say it just works it's super easy to use   go to squarespace.com and when you're ready to 
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now let's get back to these rings and finish them   up so the next thing i'm doing is taking this 
deburring tool and removing the burr around the   inside edge this works really well and then i'm 
going to chuck this up on the lathe with this   wooden dowel and then i use some blue painters 
tape to find the right size and they just kind   of friction fit on there so then i can take a file 
and round over the edges and get that epoxy smooth   and then from there i'm sanding from 220 all the 
way up to 3000 grit and i'm using wet sandpaper   and i tried wet sanding and dry sanding and the 
wet sanding just seemed to make it messy and the   dry was just as fine and this may or may not be 
necessary but put a coat of super glue along the   outside and then buff that to a polish my thought 
is that the exposed copper from sanding it away   would actually turn dark and ugly and i didn't 
want that to happen so putting a coat of super   glue over that might might just work as a nice 
finish if you're not familiar with this technique   a lot of wood turners use this on pens and you 
can get a super shiny glossy finish very fast i   am really really happy with the way this came out 
you were actually seeing this before my wife is   because she's away on a work trip i'm four weeks 
late on getting these done so i gotta work on my   husband's skills a little bit i do have a video of 
every year that i've done this i think there are   six or seven or eight of these videos i've got a 
playlist a lot of them are made out of wood some   of them are copper i use a ring stretcher in some 
of them every year i try a different technique   this is a fun thing that we do we retire the 
old rings and just make new ones i get asked   this every single year what do you do with the 
old rings and they're just kind of scattered   throughout the house in various drawers but one 
day i want to make a stand that will hold them   all the problem is it needs to be built and 
constructed in a way that i could add to it   over over time i mean who knows how long it's 
going to take before kelly wants to divorce me so   so you might want to check out that playlist 
of those videos this machine this is the little   machine shop lathe no affiliation paid full 
price hashtag not sponsored all that bullcrap   pretty much ready out of the box all i really 
had to do is just screw on the handles wipe away   the shipping grease and then re-oil everything 
and it was good to go and i feel like this is   one of those tools that really opens up a world 
of possibilities for me so if i ever get a mill   this will pair nicely with that and really expand 
my machining and metal working stuff before we go   i've been getting a lot of comments lately saying 
welcome back or where have you been or we miss you   i'm not sure what's happening i don't think 
youtube is showing my videos to all of my   subscribers so be sure to hit that notification 
bell so you know when i put out a video i also   have an email list you can sign up for i also 
post on twitter and instagram we can get around   this weird youtube thing where it's not showing 
everybody my videos by going to these other places   either email or social media it's getting 
to be around christmas time and if you want   to make gifts for your loved ones i have three 
woodworking books that i have written and released   one is nothing but cutting boards there's like 15 
cutting board projects in there i have another one   on bandsaw boxes i think there are eight bandsaw 
box projects in there and then nothing but kitchen   utensils and kitchen things things for the kitchen 
so you might want to check that out i also have   individual plans for various projects so go check 
that out thank you for watching i appreciate you   sticking around as always be safe have 
fun stay passionate and make something you