I am not bragging about this one, Well, maybe a little LOL. After all-it is my first ring. I made some mistakes but it did turn out to be a nice ring that I get compliments on.
Since it is my first ring and I don't yet own a ring mandrel, only ring sizers, I made a cork form to use for sizing the ring and to help keep it's size while firing.
Yes, cork can most certainly be fired with a torch. It creates some flame but if you have proper ventillation the smoke shouldn't cause any problems at all. The cork will burn away.
The cork was coated with wax using the old-timey candle dipping technique. That helped to keep the ring from shrinking too much. It ended up fitting my pinkie. I used a torch to fire it.
When the temp got hot enough the cork started burning. I didn't mind that too much because I had my work under a vent hood. The problem was that I couldn't see the color of the silver and couldn't tell when the ring was at sinter stage. So I removed heat for a bit and used a darning needle to remove the smoldering cork. That was so much better. Then I began again with heating and sintering the ring. I held it at sinter for 6 minutes. It is said that it only takes a couple of minutes to fire the fast burning kind of silver clay. It is also said that the longer a piece is held at sinter, the stronger it will be in the end.
As you can see the inside of the ring wasn't very smooth. That was because I didn't pay attention to how smooth the wax was before I formed the ring on it. I am very happy with the pattern I put on it. It came from part of a Celtic rubber stamp. The pattern was sparse so I stamped (very carefully) twice. I Love It! :D
This image was taken immediately after I wire brushed it. It has since been filed as smooth as I could get the edges and inside. There is still a little "dip" inside the ring but I won't file it any further because it will be too thin. It looks really nice now and I wear it every day along with the pendant (shown below) that I made a couple of weeks ago.
Kay
