Made a ring from antler today.

[BigNick73]

Got a metal lathe last month and been playing with it and new materials. Made a core from some 303 stainless, then the antler I have is kind of oval/flat so drilled through the side, bored out and mounted to the core. Blew out a chunk turning it round so added a inlay to fix it. Actually used both lathes for it, metal for the core and the larger boring on the antler and the wood lathe to shape/finish.

Not 100% happy with it but think it's a good go for the first time working with the stainless and antler. If you got any tip/feedback I'm open to it.

 

[dogcatcher]

Nice job, I like that you did the stainless steel insert and all. I cheat, I buy Chineses stainless steel rings and add the wood or in your case the anter to it. For less than a dollar a piece.

Go to Carter Tools for Taig lathes and look at the ring mandrel plans he has on his website. A Universal Expanding Ring Mandrel for the Lathe They work real good for turning and polishing the finished ring.

Also, if you keep turning your own insert, there are cotton ring buffers that are available I believe from Widget Supply. If you order, buy extras, you will need one for each of the grits and they do wear out.

 

[BigNick73]

Nice job, I like that you did the stainless steel insert and all. I cheat, I buy Chineses stainless steel rings and add the wood or in your case the anter to it. For less than a dollar a piece.

Go to Carter Tools for Taig lathes and look at the ring mandrel plans he has on his website. A Universal Expanding Ring Mandrel for the Lathe They work real good for turning and polishing the finished ring.

Also, if you keep turning your own insert, there are cotton ring buffers that are available I believe from Widget Supply. If you order, buy extras, you will need one for each of the grits and they do wear out.

I will probably use the chinese blanks if doing these on the regular, just got the lathe and wanted to practice and had bought some 303 drops off ebay to get the feel, and practice with the boring bar and whatnot. Definitely more work than it's worth to turn them from 1.25" stock.

I desperately need some sort of mandrel if I do any more, I've been waiting for bangleguy.com to get some more of their step mandrels in, they're supposed to have them in the next couple of weeks. May have to build one, showed this one on facebook and already have people asking to buy them.

I think I see the ring buffers you mention, the "Felt polisher" that's on a stick? They work better than a dremel? This one I used a dremel with a sanding drum to shape/clean both inside and out. Ran it while it was spinning on the lathe, figure I could use a buffing drum if I needed the inside shiny.

Inside I used a piece of 800 grit on a stick it's dull/brushed/scratched but I like a matte interior personally as it's less slick. Outside was actually ran all they way through the micro meshes, even though it looks kinda matte in the photo its a semi-gloss in person as I did not CA the antler, it doesn't polish out like CA.

 

[dogcatcher]

The Carter Tool mandrel is the cheapest. Your next best option is expanding arbors, you can find them at places like MSC and McMaster Carr and eBay. They come in sets but not enough sizes for each ring size, so some will need to be turned to ring size. But you can get an inch diameter size and turn your own mandrel with different sizes in steps. The bad in that, it is a pain to do the left sides of the ring. I eventually made one mandrel for each of the popular sized rings and used the stepped mandrel only for the odd sizes that were not needed as often. The 1" and 3/4" expanding arbors can be turned to steps like the ready made ones. You just cannot make as many sizes on one arbor, the split is not as deep as the Bangle Guy's mandrel.

The felt ones are the ones I used. You can make them with a dowels, split the end and insert a piece of felt in the slit. Caswell Plating has the compounds for buffing metals.