[Jewelry making - Article 00333] - Re: [Orchid] Replacing silver ring shank

[Leif M]

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    When you say you need to replace the ring shank, do you mean you have
    to replace the entire shank? Or does the ring just need a half shank
    or perhaps even quarter shank? If all the ring needs is a half shank
    or quarter shank, if you're confident in your soldering abilities, as
    conductive as silver is, there's a possibility that the new shank can
    be soldered in place with the top half of the ring covered by a
    refractive wadding of your choice. I use a lot of wet paper towel and
    on occasion, heat shield at work. 

    If the entire silver shank, not just half or a quarter needs
    replacing, depending on how attached the customer is to that tooth
    there's an outside possibility you could sell the customer on
    re-making the silver portion of the ring from scratch. You could then
    cut the silver away to let the tooth free, remove the gold from the
    old ring and attach it to the new one exactly as it was before. 

    As for annealing the antlers to get the tooth out, unless the gold
    used to make those antlers is extremely tough/brittle they'll
    probably be good to bend back enough to let the tooth out. I don't
    know how the ring is put together exactly but if the antlers are
    soldered on you'd want to be pretty careful annealing them anyway,
    they may be attached with a solder that flows very easily and while
    annealing they could just let go an drop off. I once had carved west
    coast native band in silver with a gold element attached to it that
    had been stuck on there with soft solder. You could try gently
    grabbing hold of one of the points of an antler away from the tooth
    with a pair of pliers and see how that point reacts to being bent. If
    it doesn't snap right off then the rest of the gold is likely the
    same hardness. 

    Either way, the worst case scenario there is that the antler breaks
    while extracting the tooth but in my experience that's not all that
    common for gold to break if you move it slowly and watch carefully
    what it's doing. If you see any cracking at all, stop, reassess the
    situation, get a coffee and think things through. If the antler
    breaks, you'll at least have the tooth out and you can then repair
    the antler and work on the ring all you like. 

    Alternately you could seek the assistance of a local repair shop with
    a good reputation. It's not too uncommon for other jewellers to come
    to the shop where I work for our assistance. I'm not sure where you
    live but people on the forum here might be able to point you to
    somebody nearby that could be of assistance to you. If you're in
    Vancouver, I'll be happy to look at the ring for you. 

Hope that helps a bit.
Leif
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