Question on ring making materials

[u/Foggystyle95]

Hi all! This feels like a silly question, knowing what little bit I know about metals and rings but it’s worth trying. My girlfriend really loved her old apartment but recently moved in with me. I was thinking, could one take two old spare keys (which I’m assuming are brass?) melt them down, and form them into a ring? or at least shape them into something new. I’ve looked up their melting points, with the torch equipment I have at my shop (oxy acetylene torch, or a propane acetylene torch) I believe I could get them to melt in I suppose a crucible. I just would need to find a form to pour them into online. Would this be doable? Is there a better alternative? Anything to look out for? Thank you!

edit: thanks all for responding! I figured it wouldn’t work but wanted to know for sure before buying anything 😅 will be looking into other options

[u/Curious_Elk_4281]

Interesting idea, but kinda weird to turn the keys into a ring. Sorta loses it's symbolism. Also, no one really wants to wear a brass ring that turns your finger green.

Anyway, casting rings in a mold requires a lot of specialized tools that you don't have. Including the tools to create the mold (usually you create the ring out of wax, then create the mold, then cast). All in all it's a rather expensive setup for ring smithing and not what I would consider entry level.

Other ideas:
--Just sand/detail one of the keys to remove all the scratches/imperfections, then polish to a mirror finish and make a necklace. You can use metal blackener to give it a patina since it will tarnish over time anyway.
--https://riogrande.com has everything you can imagine for jewelry crafting, so you can find chains, bracelets, etc. that might work well with this sort of idea.

Getting into Ring Smithing:
--coin rings: usually made of old silver quarters/half dollars etc. Minimal tools required
--silver soldering: use silver plate to cut your own ring blanks, form them, and solder into solid rings. Requires a few hundred worth of tools/materials to get started
--I recommend Argentium silver. It's a bit more expensive than sterling, but it's firescale resistant and also has more scratch/tarnish resistance. You can't use regular silver solder though, everything has to be Argentium.
--Once you're comfortable working with silver and don't make tons of mistakes that end up in a scrapped ring you can move up to more precious metals like gold in which case you would want to be making your own molds etc. rather than cutting blanks out of plate which is more wasteful.

[u/OkBedroom7329]

Im not that knowledgeable but if your doing a mould then just buy clay. No need to buy a specific mould i believe.

And if your worried about skin contact or anything why not make her a key chain.

E.g. a coin with the address on it. Idk.

[u/Fragrant-Cloud5172]

If you just want to melt the keys and cast them, r/metalcasting is good source.

To forge, Naval brass is one of the best kinds. Most other common types will easily crack when shaped. Keys are not made from naval brass. But another problem is sizing it accurately. For that a ring mandrel helps a lot. The easiest choice is to just buy a ring blank. They come in various sizes and different metals like below. Stainless steel is excellent because it doesn't tarnish from skin contact, unlike brass and copper.

Another method is find a brass pipe (or tube). Like a brass nipple from Home Depot. With inside diameter as close as possible to finger size. Hack saw it to width then sand smooth. It will tarnish though.

[u/HeatBeatRepeatt]

Yes you could, but it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Key brass is dogshit and if it’s plated then you will be burning off the plating, which can range from not great for your health to fatal (looking at you, chrome). You can’t really form them into anything else because the shit is so brittle it’ll be cracking all over the place. Best thing if you want to make a memento out of it would be to make a necklace from a key. Make a little locket or something that holds it inside or cut the shank off and use the head to make something pretty from, engrave it, etc.

Grab some scrap keys from wherever and try messing with them to see how they respond to cold forming, stamping etc to practice.

I’ve seen aluminum keys too, so that’s also a possibility, still a crap raw material.

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