Hand Forging Solid Gold Wedding Rings in a Medieval Forge

From Gesiþas Gewissa | Anglo-Saxon Heritage

For our wedding, we wanted to forge our own rings. Pure gold has been valued for its lustre and golden bright glow for thousands of years, prized by ancient peoples. So we chose pure gold for our rings. This is my first time forging gold and, given its value, I was nervous about attempting to fuse a gold bar into a ring in a historical forge, without melting it completely. So I chose the more unconventional method of drifting a hole into a gold ingot and forging the ring in one piece around a ring drift. Whether this method was used regularly in historical times, I do not know, but it does provide a way to forge a ring without fusing the metal. Ancient peoples were highly skilled in gold smithing, and were no doubt comfortable annealing, fusing and granulating gold rings in a forge with ease. However, the ring forged in a single piece, with no beginning and no end, is eternal; unbroken. This may have appealed symbolically to many cultures, including the Anglo-Saxons, who prized strong familial bonds, loyalty and the cyclical nature of life. This thought certainly appeals to us. To help with the annealing, and to catch the gold in the event that I accidentally melted it in the forge, we decided to make some small crucibles. Whether due to a true lack of evidence, or dating limitations, 7th century Somerset appears to have been virtually aceramic. But some some pottery must have been used in specialized crafts, such as for crucibles in metal working. In 7th century Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, chaff-tempered wares were common amongst the spreading Saxon cultures. These simple hand-made vessels were tempered with dried grass or chaff, which prevented cracking while drying. The grass burned out during fire, giving chaff-tempered wares their distinctive pitted and grass-patterned appearance. The spaces left by the grass may also contribute to thermal shock resistance while the pottery is heated. I started with two gold bars, melted and cast from hack-gold, and I began by annealing and forging these into round gold discs. These discs were then punched through to form a hole, and the hole was enlarged by forging the disc around the punch, and hammering it further through with a drift and bar with a pritchel hole. One the hole was large enough to fit the disc onto the ring drift, I gently hammered the discs until the hole was regular, and it was time to anneal the discs again. Pure gold is so soft that it does not need much annealing, but when you are working it as much as this, it is useful to anneal to keep the gold surface from flaking and losing material, and to prevent cold shuts. My confidence with annealing the gold grew as I repeated the process, and by the end I was feeling quite happy with my ability to judge heating the gold until the surface flakes remelted, but the ring itself stayed intact. Now came the time to forge the discs into rings on the drift, by hammering round and round until the discs became flatter and the hole gradually enlarged. While forging out the first ring - my own, I quickly realized that I was enlarging the hole too quickly; that I needed to hammer the material flat without stretching the material further up the ring drift, to bring it to shape before the ring became too big. Because gold is so soft, and stretches so easily, it was quite easy to lose control of the enlarging and flattening process. With the second ring - Sina's, I hammered the material of the ring much more aggressively in the beginning, just at the very tip of the drift, without pushing it further up, to bring the material flat. This worked much better and allowed me to get the ring to a nice shape before beginning to stretch the gold to size in a controlled way. Next time, I will start by hammering the discs into a smaller diameter, with a greater thickness, before beginning to drift the holes, which will help to more quickly forge a wider, flatter band. Once the rings were roughly forged to size, I planished the surfaces to smooth out the hammer marks, as well as rounding off the inside with light hammer taps. I also gave the rings a very light file where they needed it. Ideally, you avoid filing gold wherever possible, as it is so valuable, but my planishing skill left a little to be desired, and so a light file touch was needed. I polished the rings to a shine with leather. The final stage was gently sizing the rings on the drift, until we were both happy with the fit. I feel very lucky to be able to have made our own rings in an ancient forge on the land that we both love, and to have shared that with my love, Sina.