Wooden ring: advice please

thebouldwhacker

Hi all, just wondering if anyone can advise me on how to make a wooden ring. Ie what wood is best, how to treat/cure it to prevent shrinkage or expansion etc etc.
Thanks!

slowburner

thebouldwhacker wrote: »

Hi all, just wondering if anyone can advise me on how to make a wooden ring. Ie what wood is best, how to treat/cure it to prevent shrinkage or expansion etc etc.
Thanks!

Could you expand a bit?
Some dimensions maybe, or an idea of scale and/or purpose.
For example, you can make wooden rings out of veneer by simply bending them.
Other wooden rings such as those for hanging curtains, are turned.
Still bigger rings such as those for cartwheels are made by bending the timber using steam and formers.

thebouldwhacker

Hey slowburner,

Sorry for not being clear, I meant a ring as in a piece of jewelry, a finger ring.
I'm guessing by your question you may know a bit about working timber. What I was thinking was to either work with a knot or the centre of a trunk/branch or use the rings as a natural ring with the middle taken out.


if you can imagine what I mean.
Any advice would be appreciated re method, what tree to use, curing etc.

Thanks

slowburner

You asked for it :eek:
First the bad news.
You might notice in your picture, that there are cracks radiating out from the pith (heart) of the log section. These are called radial splits, surprise, surprise.
This happens because the pith (heartwood) is much harder than the surrounding sapwood.
As the softer sapwood dries, it shrinks and when it meets the harder pith, it has nowhere to relieve the stress, so it cracks.
Imagine stretching a worn old elastic band to the max around a steel cylinder - same thing happens.
The bad news is that if you work with pieces of timber with the pith still in and including sapwood, it will crack outwards from the centre.

Now the good news.
Some timber species do not have a tendency towards radial splitting.
Boxwood would be one of the best known for this quality but it is hard to come by in decent sizes and is consequently expensive.
Our own native Yew is another and is probably one of the most exquisite of all timbers IMHO.
But Yew is toxic - I am not sure how this would impact on a person wearing a ring made of it, though.
Sycamore is ok too - but dull.
Many softwoods are less prone to radial splitting but would be too coarse fibred for making rings.

Most wood is sawn out of the tree in what is called a 'through and through' method of cutting.

As you can see, this leaves the central board with the pith in and most wood workers would cut out and discard this section.
Where the tree rings are at, or close to 90º to the surface of the board, the board will be most stable (less prone to warping, cupping or splitting) and most desirable as a consequence.
You might notice that the top and bottom boards in the diagram, will suffer most distortion.

And why this long winded explanation? Well, it is to show you where in the tree you should be looking to source your timber.
Nothing will show up a badly chosen piece of timber more than a circle. If you end up with timber from boards where the rings meet the surface at an acute or obtuse angle you will end up with ovals, not rings.

Which brings me on to seasoning.
You can generally buy two sorts of timber: kiln dried or air dried.
Kiln dried has a moisture content of between 8 - 14% and is not going to change in shape when worked compared to air dried wood which in this country only ever achieves around 30%.

So you need to beg, borrow, or buy kiln dried timber ideally.
The next best thing is to source timber which has been indoors for more than a year per inch of thickness.
It is unlikely that you will require large quantities of timber so going down the route of seasoning your own, probably wouldn't make much sense.
I think the reclamation route would be a good option. You might be lucky and get your hands on some nice exotic, seasoned timbers this way.
If you were lucky enough to know a cabinet maker, they often have off cuts that they wouldn't mind giving away.

As to making.
Without doubt, turning would be the best way of making rings.
To do this you would need to invest in a lathe, chisels and various other bits and bobs.
For more advice on turning or indeed other possible methods for making rings (more ways to skin a cat?) - why not pay a visit to the Woodcraft forum?

thebouldwhacker

Great see you over there!