Make a Ring With Recycled CDs

In this tutorial I will show you a quick and easy way to make a ring with recycled CDs!

You can use any CDs for this (like old games or scratched music disks). In this Instructable I'll be using old data disks that I had lying around.

The shaping and polishing process I describe could be used on a ring made with any plastic, but I used it on a ring made of CDs as I thought they'd make an interesting material. I hope you find this useful and experiment with new ideas.

To begin you need to separate each CD into two parts – to do this I used a ruler and a utility knife to make a straight cut through one side of the disk. This cut will allow you to gently peel apart the two layers of the disk.

Sand the faces of each CD smooth so there is no aluminum or branding on top. You can do this with sandpaper, an orbital sander or a bench sander with a fine grit. This step takes a while but just be patient and please wear a dust mask with suitable filters.

With the disks sanded, clean them off with a little white spirit ready for the glue up.

In this stage you will glue all of the CDs back together to form a blank. You can use a stacking tower thing that comes with re writeable disks or just freestyle it – either way the gluing process is the same.

Ensure that you're in a well ventilated area and wear suitable face protection! Lay down a piece of baking paper either flat on the table or over the tower, superglue does not stick to it so it makes removing the blank easier later.

Place a disk down, apply a generous amount of superglue to the surface and press the next disk down on top. Use as many disks as you need to achieve your desired thickness.

Wait for the glue to cure and remove the stack of CDs ready for shaping.

When the glue is cured remove any paper that is stuck on and cut a section out with a saw of your choice.

Use a slow speed when cutting.

Next drill a hole slightly smaller than the required size so the ring can be sized up later.

Sketch your desired ring design onto the blank and get ready for shaping!

Start by roughly cutting out the shape with your saw (be careful and watch your fingers!).

Using a fine grit sand paper shape the rest of the ring on a bench sander/by hand.

With shaping complete you can size the inside of the ring and polish each surface by wet sanding the ring.

Work through progressively finer grits of sandpaper, smoothing out any rough patches or tooling marks.

I worked my way through the following grits: 180, 240, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1200, 2400, 4000, 8000, 12000.

Finally apply a little polishing compound, buff the ring until it is sufficiently shiny and enjoy!

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