Layered Paper Composite Rings
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Hello fellow makers,
I really enjoy making unique composite materials like the Fabric Micarta I made in a previous Instructable, this time however I wanted to try and make something out of some old damaged books that would have otherwise ended up in the bin.
The composite I ended up with far exceeded my expectations, it is super strong, waterproof, workability similar to hard wood and I think it looks great too!
As soon as saw the composite I knew I just had to make some rings out of it.
Join me on my journey and learn how to make your own!..
What You Will Need:
To replicate this Instructable you will need the following:
- Some old book pages
You can usually find damaged books for basically free at used book stores, the ones I use are unreadable usually with missing pages or water damage.
- 2 Part clear casting epoxy
Amazon - 2 part Clear casting epoxy
- Laminating brush
- 2x Planes of glass
- Release film
Most plastic films will works for this even a Zip-lock bag can be used if you can't find anything else. I recommend smearing a very thin layer of petroleum jelly on the plastic to ensure it releases.
- Clamps
- Sanding paper around 180 to 400 grit
- A hobby knife
Optional:
- Dremel with wood working bits (highly recommended)
- 3D Printed ring holder and laminating brush
In step 10.
If you also want to add the metal sleeve on the inside of the ring:
- 3-4mm Bronze rod
You only need about 15cm max depending on your ring size, I used 8cm.
This can be found at your local hardware store in the welding/brazing section. I recommend using bronze when learning and then moving on to precious metals later.
- Silver solder
- a Butane/propane blow torch
- a Hammer
- a Jewellers anvil
Amazon - Anvil (at $15 I highly recommend getting something like this)
Any piece of heavy metal with a smooth surface can be used, before I made myself this small jewellers anvil I used an old hammer head mounted in a vice and it worked great.
- Metal polishing compound
- Leather safety gloves
*As an Amazon Associate I receive a small percentage from sales made through provided links at no cost to you, this helps fund future projects.
Getting Started:
First we are going to need to get our pages cut to size.
I do my laminates in 20 to 30 page stacks and then cut those into smaller ring size squares that I then adhere on top of each other to get the desired thickness.
In this Instructable I will be making two rings, one with 3 of the laminates and one with 5. I prefer to do it this way as I never get trapped air bubbles, you have a lot more options available to customize your design with stacks from different books and you can vary the thickness of your final product easily without having to make a new composite each time.
With these two rings I used pages from an old story book and atlas, all combined I used about 30 pages of each cut to about 50mm by 150mm for the atlas and 90mm by 140mm for the story book. This was enough for both rings plus leftovers.
Next we will need to cover our glass panes with some release film.
I start by taping one side of the film with painters tape to the glass and then stretch it tightly before taping all around.
Any creases or imperfections on the film/glass will be transferred into the composite.
Laminating the Paper:
We are now ready to start laminating our pages.
Resins need to be measured out very carefully so I would highly reccomend using a scale to weigh out the two parts according to the manufacturers ratios.
Here is a great site that I always use to calculate my ratio, you put in the manufacturers ratio and your desired weight and it tells you how much of each part you need - Epoxy Ratio Calculator
I ended up using around 50ml-80ml of the epoxy resin to make enough composite for the two rings.
I started by taping down an extra piece of plastic on my workbench on which I could layer the paper before transferring the completed composite to the glass pane.
Now take your brush and wet it with the mixed epoxy resin, on the piece of plastic smear a block roughly the size of your pages with the epoxy. Next smear the one side of the page completely with epoxy and place that side onto the epoxy block on the plastic.
Next smear epoxy over the page that you just laid down making sure it's completely wetted through and then place your next dry page onto it.
I found that after the first page you just need to smear the top of every new page you lay down as the paper is porous enough to wick the epoxy resin through.
Continue this until your stack is complete.
This is optional but after I am done with a stack I like to place a piece of plastic over it and then take a rolling pin and roll over it to remove the excess resin and any air bubbles, this also results in a much denser composite.
You can transfer the layered stack over to the plastic covered glass pane, place the second pane on top of it and clamp it down, as you can see in the pictures I used a piece of aluminium profile to apply more even pressure onto the glass otherwise you run the risk of the glass cracking.
Leave to cure according to manufacturers specifications (I left mine for 24 hours)
Cut to Size:
After the resin is left to cure completely it's time to pop it off of the glass and cut it into smaller pieces.
With my release film a gentle pull was enough to separate the composite from the glass, but if yours is being particularly stubborn you can cut the plastic loose from the glass pane and then peel it from the composite as we won't need to use it again.
Now we are going to need to cut our composite sheets into smaller pieces that we can stack to get the desired thickness for our rings. I thought this was going to be an easy step as I've worked with other composites before and know which tools I always use...
Boy was I wrong...
This composite is TOUGH!
I would definitely recommend getting a serrated steel Dremel cutoff wheel as all my other ways failed and I had to sand away ALL of the excess with a course grit sanding disc as it is all I had on hand that worked, it was messy and took FOREVER so don't make the same mistake as me and invest in the HSS circular saw blades.
I cut my two sheets of composite as follow:
6 Pieces from the story book pages, this will be the bulk of the rings.
2 Pieces of the maps that will be a colourful inset in the middle of the rings.
2 Small pieces of the maps that will be put on top of the one ring as an embellishment.
Second Lamination Prep:
Now that we have our smaller pieces we need to prepare them for the second lamination.
First wet a piece of 400 grit sanding paper with some soapy water and place it on one of your glass panes.
Next we are going to be sanding all of the composite pieces on both sides to give the epoxy resin a coarse surface to properly adhere to.
When you're done sanding go ahead and wipe down all of the pieces with some alcohol or soapy water and let dry.
I also took the time now to arrange the pieces in order of how the will be laminated for the next step.
Second Lamination:
Mix up a small amount (less than 20ml) of epoxy resin again according to manufacturers instructions.
Now smear the resin onto the faces of the pieces that will be stuck together to get the desired thickness with your brush, be very sparingly with the epoxy resin this time as basically zero will be absorbed and most of it will just be squished out of the sides.
My layers are:
For the thick ring I have two story book pieces on either side with a single map piece in between.
For the metal sleeved ring a have a single story book piece on either side of a single map piece.
And then just two small map pieces to create the embellishment for the thick ring.
I then placed the 3 pieces on top of each other (making sure there was no spilled resin between them) into my clamp along with some plastic just to catch any resin drips.
Leave to fully cure.
Plan Your Design:
Before we start cutting away at our composite we are going to need to plan out the look of each ring...
I started by using an old ring to get the correct sizing and used a sharp pencil to trace around and inside of it onto the composite, this is your starting point.
From here you can go wild, I wanted the metal sleeved ring to be very plain and simple, but for the thicker one you can see on the pictures I stuck the small piece of maps against the "grain" of the composite to create a focal point on the ring.
When you're happy with your sketched design we can move on to cutting it.
Start Shaping:
Using a coarse sanding disc I started to sand away all of the excess material around my design.
Be sure to wear appropriate safety gear and a respirator when sanding the composite!
Next I used some wood carving bits to carve out the centre holes of the rings, you can also use a drill if you have large enough bits.
Then I switched to 80 grit sanding drums on the Dremel to smooth out the final design and to enlarge the centre hole to the correct size.
Note that if you will also be putting the metal sleeve into the ring that the hole will need to be bigger, but you should first create the metal inner before enlarging the hole further to get the best possible fit.
Making the Metal Sleeve:
Safety first!
Always wear leather gloves and face protection when forging metals, the pieces can cause serious burns even after standing for a while. Always handle your metal as if it is hot.
Now we will need to start shaping our bronze rod.
For this ring you need a rod that is the circumference of your ring finger, mine was about 7cm long.
You can measure your ring size using a piece of string. Take the string and wrap it around the base of your finger, marking where the string first overlaps with a pen. Then, line that up with a ruler and take down its length
Now we need to anneal the bronze rod, with the butane/propane torch you need to heat up your bronze rod until it gets to a cherry red color and then quench it in a bucket of water (or if you are comfortable working with hot metal you can hot forge it without quenching first)
When the rod has reached temperature you can place the rod on the anvil and start hammering it down on one side, try to keep your hammer head as flat as possible whilst moving across the rod.
While hammering you will feel the bronze getting harder, once you feel this happening you will need to reheat the rod as above.
Flipping the rod over from time to time will help keep it straight.
Keep repeating the above until you've reduced the thickness of the rod from 3mm-4mm to around 0.8mm-1mm.
Now you can reheat the rod and then place it on its side and gently hammer down the side to end up with a uniform bar that's approximately 5mm+ wide and 1mm thick.
Time to solder the joint.
First we need to bend the bar into a flat oval so that the two ends are together as flush as possible, now place on a suitable surface to solder on (I did my brazing on some ceramic furnace tiles)
Add silver solder flux and a small piece of silver solder (medium/hard) in the joint and start heating the joint with your butane torch.
When the piece reaches the melting point of the solder it will flow into joint.
Wait for the piece to cool completely.
You can now use a small hammer to start gently hammering it back into a circle, I like to use a smooth metal rod that I place inside of the ring and then hammer around it but you can also use the horn on your mini jewellers anvil.
Finally I sanded the inside and outside of the ring with the drum sander.
3D Printed Accessories:
To make sanding the rings easier I created a jig that clamps the ring into place and can then be inserted into a drill to make sanding a breeze.
You can also find this reusable sponge brush on Thingiverse that saves you a lot of money on brushes and cuts down on wastage: DIY Brush from Kitchen Sponge by akimakes
Assembling and Sanding:
Now to assemble your ring and do some final shaping and sanding.
For the metal sleeved ring we are going to use the drum sanding bit to enlarge the hole until the bronze ring can push in snugly, do this incremental as you don't want to accidentally make it too big.
When the hole is big enough for the metal sleeve you can smear either some 2 part epoxy or like me 2 part CA glue around the metal sleeve and inside the paper ring, then push the sleeve all the way in.
While we let the glue cure we can start sanding the other one.
First I used the drum sanding bit to do the final shaping and get rid of any bumps and other imperfections. Then using a sheet of 220 grit sanding paper on a pane of glass wetted with some soapy water I sanded down the sides, as you can see in the pictures tapered the ring down towards the bottom.
To do this I simply applied more pressure in the bottom area whilst sanding. I then sanded the around the ring to get rid of any scratches left by the 80 grit sanding drum.
With the metal sleeved ring we will do the same as above but will be sanding the sides in a circular motion until the metal is flush with the paper composite.
Finally with some 400 grit sanding paper we can sand the entire ring to get rid of any imperfections that is left.
Polishing:
We have reached our final step!
Now we just need to polish and seal the ring and it will be ready to wear.
Using a felt polishing pad and some compounding polish I polished both rings until they were nice and shiny, unfortunately I noticed that after washing away the leftover residue the composite would become dull again.
I then decided to treat the composite like wood and applied a coat of skin safe pure linseed oil and leaving them to absorb and dry before buffing the rings with a soft clean cloth.
This worked beautifully, it gave the rings a nice shine and really brought out the colours.
Enjoy!
And that's it, now you can slip on your beautiful new creation!