Spoons to Rings

I've found lots of souvenir spoons at second hand shops and yard sales, they were at one time someone's treasured collection from places they had visited. To put them out on display I decided to try turning some of them into rings, it would be a good way of remembering the previous owner (grandmother, mother or some other family member). This project goes along with the philosophy of some of my other Instructables by taking something and re-purposing it so that it lives on.

You'll need spoons, yard sales, second hand shops.

Tools:

Torch,

Silver solder,

Pliers, needle nose and side cutters.

Brass wire brush.

A Dremel tool with wire brush, fiber brush, grinding wheel and a tiny drill bit.

An alligator clip.

A bench vice with soft jaws (copper or leather to prevent the steel jaws from making marks on the spoons)

A dowel or pipe of about 1/2" diameter to bend the spoon around.

I cut off the spoon part of the Tofino spoon with side cutters.

I unsolder-ed the Tofino B.C. part off of the handle.

I clamped the dowel in the vice and bent the spoon handle into a ring shape.

I cleaned up the places to be soldered with the brass brush and then pretinned the two pieces to be soldered.

The two pieces were then soldered together, I used an alligator clip to hold them in place while soldering.

The clipped end of the spoon was then ground smooth with the Dremel tool.

Sorry about slightly out of focus pictures of the back of the rings.

I removed the Golden Gate charm off of the the spoon handle.

The spoon part with attached handle was then put it in the vice with soft jaws and flattened.

Then I drilled a small hole in the lower part of the spoon. I put the dowel in the vice and formed the spoon around the dowel.

The Golden Gate charm was then attached to the drilled hole.

I think the rings turned out quite good.

The California ring looks a bit worn, but I don't know how old it is and that was its condition when I found it.