Author: Elisabeth Kramer

Author bio: Elisabeth Kramer is a day-of wedding coordinator in Portland, Oregon. Learn more about her work on her website.

“Really, it’s a very mild acid,” Allison said as she gestured toward the Crock-Pot in the corner. “If it gets on your skin, it only itches.”

She paused, considering.

“Well, unless you have a cut. Then it burns.”

I met Allison Ullmer a few months after my fiancé and I moved to Portland from Seattle. I was immediately blown away by her business, Ringed. A trained metalsmith and jeweler, Allison is one of only a handful of studios in the country, all of which are female-owned, that helps couples make their own wedding bands.

Jay and I walked into Allison’s studio three months before we got married. She offered us a cup of coffee and handed us each a worksheet listing the steps for the workshop.

“Give those a read as I get a few things ready,” she said.

I sipped my coffee and did as she said. According to the worksheet, each wedding band would take nine steps and five hours to make. Jay and I would work in tandem as he made my ring and I made his. Each step on the worksheet included a picture and a short description of what to expect. I didn’t recognize half the words.

“Ready?” Allison asked as she took her place across the table. She held her hands palm up toward us. In each, a small rectangular block of gold. “Let’s get started.”

Not as hard as I feared

The first step was the easiest. Allison handed us the gold and picked up one of her favorite tools — a palm-sized piece of metal called a miter jig. The squat metal block would make sure that whatever the length of our gold, Jay and I cut a perfect 90-degree angle as we figured out our exact ring sizes.

“Let’s start with the eight,” Allison said as she handed Jay a key ring full of circles. It looked like a set of brass knuckles.

He slipped a circle with an eight on to his left ring finger.

“Too big. Try a half-size down.”

That one was too small. We settled for seven and three-quarters.

“Do you know your ring size?” Allison asked me. My engagement ring safely sat in a ring bowl nearby. Allison said wearing it while I worked might warp the metal.

“A seven?” I said as I took the brass knuckles from Jay.

“That looks too big to me,” Allison said as I put on the circle with the seven. “People nearly always pick a size too big. You should be able to get the ring over your knuckle but only if you twist. Try something smaller.”

The six-and-a-half fit like a dream. 

Allison pointed to our gold. “Now, we measure.”

As we converted our ring size into millimeters, she explained why right angles mattered for a round ring. If you didn’t have a solid base, by the time you got to the part where you curved the ring into a circle, the ends wouldn’t meet. A surprisingly apt metaphor for marriage,  I thought.

We measured once more and then Allison turned toward a low table to her right. A fire extinguisher sat on the floor next to three gas canisters. “It’s time to anneal,” she said.

I considered making a bad joke about how I thought Jay already did that part but I bit my tongue. I wasn’t actually sure what “anneal” meant.

“Like everything, metal is made of atoms,” Allison explained as we moved to the table. “When you anneal, you’re heating the atoms so they loosen up. That makes the metal easier to work.”

She reached under the table and handed me a striker. Jay stood to my right, watching from a safe distance. 

“Did you ever take chemistry in high school?” she asked.

I nodded.

“This is just like what you use to light a Bunsen burner. Hold it here and press in to strike.”

I tried. A spark.

“Now do it with your left hand. You’re going to have the torch in your right.”

I took my seat in front of the low table, striker in my left hand and unlit blow torch in my right. The torch was smaller than I thought, about ten inches long. Allison pulled a cinder block toward me. Its white surface was covered in scorch marks.

“That old expression, ‘Lefty loosey, righty tighty’? It doesn't apply to blow torches,” she explained. “They didn’t want to make it too easy to turn on the gas.”

I twisted the knob on the torch and heard a soft hiss. Behind me, I heard Jay sigh with longing. The man loves a blowtorch.

“Strike,” Allison said.

The torch lit and suddenly, I was wielding a small sun in my right hand.

“Show me where you think the sweet spot is,” she said.

I grabbed a steel pick from the tabletop and pointed to the heart of the flame, a point about halfway down the blinding tail of fire. 

“Exactly. Now, be sure to keep an even rhythm as you go over the metal. We don’t want to heat up one part more than another.”

I moved the torch slowly over the gold.

“Closer.”

I brought the torch in. The metal grew dark, almost black.

“Is it burning?” I asked, concerned.

“It’s oxidizing. The heated oxygen is reacting with the atoms in the metal.”

The gold went from black to crimson.

“Keep going. We’re looking for something called ‘cherry red.’”

I leaned in closer. Slowly, thin veins of bright red appeared along the edges of the darkened gold. 

“Just a little bit more…”

The red glowed brighter. It looked like lava. 

“OK that’s it!” Allison said.

I pulled the torch away. The red faded.

“Now we put it on the quartz.”

I breathed a quick sigh of relief as I turned the torch off and used a pair of steel tongs to move the gold from the cinder block onto the quartz tabletop.

“It looks so dirty,” I said. The gold was nearly all black.

“That’s what the pickle is for,” she said, pointing to the Crock-Pot.

The final results

Over the next few hours, we annealed and pickled several times. Jay and I passed a lead-weighted hammer back and forth as we pounded our respective metals into Ds — not Os because Os don’t have right angles. At one point, Jay’s metal grew too “work-hardened” and Allison put it back under the blow torch. “Couples therapy for atoms,” I joked.

Around 1 p.m., we stopped for tamales as the rings stewed in the pickle. We only had a few more steps to go. The next would be the toughest: We needed to solder our seams.

There are two ways to make a ring: fabricate or cast. Jay and I fabricated our wedding bands. We manipulated metal into the shapes we wanted. Allison cast hers. It’s a pure circle of 24-karat gold that has no end because she melted, poured, and cooled the metal all at the same time.

The hard part about fabrication is that you need a good seam. Otherwise, the two ends of the ring won’t stay closed and your circle will break.

Allison explained all of this while cutting a thin piece of 14-karat gold into strips and melting the strips into tiny balls the size of a pinhead. This was our solder. It melted faster than the surrounding gold so we could use it like glue. Very hot, very temperamental glue.

“We need a different blow torch for this part,” Allison said as she finished cutting the metal. “It’s much more powerful so it’s very important that neither of you look directly into the flame.”

This torch was smaller, nearly half the size of the first. It had two knobs. “Green is for oxygen because you can breathe oxygen,” Allison said. “Red is for gas because, well, gas.”

The tiny balls of 14-karat gold rolled around in a dish as Jay took the hot seat. His goal was to place one of those tiny balls in the pencil-thin gap between the left end of my ring and the right, heat it up until it melted, and then quickly but smoothly use the torch to move the solder into place.

“As soon as I say ‘away,’ pull the torch away,” Allison said. “It follows the heat.”

He nodded and lit the torch. I snuck a peek from the corner of my eye. The light was so bright it blurred my vision.

“OK, grab the solder.”

Jay balanced the tiny ball on the end of a thin steel pick. He gently lifted it to my ring and placed the ball at the very end of the tiny gap. My ring was slightly curved. The ball slipped off.

“Grab another,” Allison said.

This one stayed put and slowly, Jay began to work the torch underneath the bottom of the ring. Metal is highly conductive so soon, the top grew dark even though Jay had yet to fire it. Allison leaned in. Earlier in the session, she told us to never worry where she was standing; she’d move if things got too hot.

“Bring the torch up to the top and remember, as soon as I say ‘away,’ move the torch.”

Jay lifted the torch and arched his elbow. Angles mattered here, too. He needed to bring the torch down at 90 degrees in order to heat the whole surface at the same time.

“Lower.”

The gold turned a familiar black.

“Lower. Remember the sweet spot.”

The solder began to bubble.

“Lower… and away!”

In one smooth arc, Jay swept the torch across the top of the ring. The solder made a glistening gold trail, perfectly glueing the two sides together. 

“Nicely done!” Allison said. Jay grinned as I clapped. No one expected us to do it right the first time.

Two steps later and we came to my favorite part. After the solder, I pounded the metal with a rawhide hammer and something called a mandrel. Every time I stopped, Allison encouraged me to sand a little more. We didn’t want any rough edges. 

Eventually, I handed the polished ring to Jay. The gold glowed from where it sat in his palm. He slipped the ring on his finger and broke into a smile. His eyes glimmered with tears.

After a little more hammering and then, the final step, polishing, the matching gold bands sat snuggly on our respective left hands as we hugged Allison goodbye. It was nearly dinner time but neither Jay nor I were hungry. We were too busy staring at our hands.

“I know I’ve already said it a million times but it is so cool we made these!” Jay said. He thrust his hand up. Sunlight caught the gold.

“And you made mine!” I said. The band sat nestled under my engagement ring. Somehow, it made the diamond shine brighter. 

Jay pointed to the dip on the inside of his ring. I accidentally hit it twice with the “14K” stamp that marked which metal we used. The inside of his band had a crisp “14K” next to a squiggle — my first attempt.

“I love the imperfections most,” he said.

I smiled. It was our imperfections that Jay and I liked best about each other, too. I grabbed his left hand and brought it to my lips. I closed my eyes and kissed his wedding ring. I couldn’t wait until it was there all the time.

Interested in making your own wedding rings with Ringed? Let’s Talk!