How To Inlay Gold Band Into Ring?

Q: I have a bench lathe and will attempt to make a wedding ring for my son out of CP Titanium. I wish to inlay the ring with a band of 1mm x 1mm square gold wire. Making the groove is no problem but I'm looking for advice on how to secure the wire in the groove, or at least point me to a book on ring inlay techniques that will help me. One method I have researched is to undercut the 1mm groove so it is wider at the bottom, then swedge in the wire and smooth it flush. However I don't see how such a small groove can be undercut on a lathe, and I don't know how the ends of the gold wire should be joined. It seems to me if heat were applied it would discolor the Titanium.

A: Solid CP titanium rings with gold or other metal inlay have been around for several years now and the producers have to use a modified form of the traditional techniques. As you have so far researched, the oldest method that has been used on weaponry has been the undercut method. This undercutting has been done with a very fine chisel, some what impractical on a titanium ring, tho possible. The grove you plan to cut can be straight sided but the top lips will be a few hundreths of a mm higher. then the gold inlay can be round wire hammered in to the grouve. this will deform to fill the grove with the top lips closing down on the gold. then the whole ring will be returned to the lathe to true the top surface up so visually it looks a seamless in lay. There are other ways it can be done It is possible to gold solder the 2 ends of the gold together to hide the joint, the titanium will be discouloured a little but since its impossible to get gold or any other traditional jewellers brazing alloys to molecularly bond to titanium, again it will be turned in the lathe after brazing to give the apparance of a seamless inlay. the discolouring will be removed in the returning. There is another way that I have used to form compression deformed collars on some of the bracelet designs Ive made. this uses a conical tool steel die that the item is pressed through. this deforms the collar into a grove and locks it on the stem. So it would be similarly possible to gold solder up a gold ring that fits above the groove in the titanium, when driven through the die it will compress it into the groove. Then its trued up in the lathe to give the appearance of being an inlay. Which it is of course. Its just the technique you will have to choose to suit you workshop. Peter our moderator will have some other techniques to add to this somewhat simple review. Good luck and keep us posted as to how you solved the problem. Ted Frater Titanium smith as well as other things!! You could do it with a home-ground toolbit shaped something like an internal thread-cutting tool, but with more angle to the point, except that you are cutting Ti, and HSS bits don't do real well for that. It MIGHT work, but generally you want carbide or some exotic tooling. Otherwise, the usual way would be to undercut the groove with a graver or burr in a flexshaft. Flexshaft on Ti would probably need a carbide burr, and good luck finding one that tiny! Again, for a limited duration, HSS might work.

How To Inlay Gold Band Into Ring?

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