This is the first wooden ring with copper core ever made by me. Well, if you read this whole post and view all the photos of this wooden ring you will know that I am not telling the truth. This was supposed to be my first wooden ring but since wood does not expand … it ended up being just a prototype. I wanted to make all sorts of wooden rings for a long time now but never got around to it. I bought this small 5 ” in length block of Australian (Queensland) silky oak for $14 and cut out a small piece for my new wood lathe. I drilled the hole for my copper core insert and secured it on the wooden mandrel I made earlier for this purpose. Took no time to get the shavings going and a few minutes later I had this outside wooden shell for my copper insert. Everything looked ok and I decided to keep the copper core to fit nice and tight for the wooden outside of the ring. Well, wood / timber does not expand! Working with metals for a while clouded my little brain I guess and … you can see it on my pictures. Ok, I guess I learned my lesson and since then (I made a whole bunch of copper / brass / silver / coin core wooden rings) and changed a lot of my planning and work flow.
I was so determined to finish this silky oak wooden ring (or one like it) that I re-used the copper core for the next “prototype” and you can see No2 proto in my next post. Lots of photos as well. BTW, I am starting to list my new wood rings with different inserts / cores in my ETSY online shop.
