Jewelry Blog: Making a Barbed Wire Ring

I love the look of barbed wire; edgy and cool, I thought it would look pretty cool in sterling silver.  The issue?  How to make it?

I found a close up photo of some wire, and realized its actually 2 pieces of wire twisted together.  So that was step 1.  Step 2, how exactly to make the barb?  The finished barbs have 4 points sticking out from them, so that to me also said it required 2 cut pieces of wire.  I tried wrapping wire around the ring, but it was too flimsy to wrap tightly.  So I grabbed a nail, wedged one end in a vise and wrapped 2 pieces of wire, together,  solidly around it.  Great… but my ends were still all pointing in the same direction.  Until I dropped it… and realized the coils spiral around eachother and move.  They had slid around eachother when they hit the floor.  I pushed the ends in opposite directions, and then stopped  when one set of prongs was pointing in one direction and the other 2 in another. 

I slid that onto the band, and soldered it tight.  I blunted the ends of the barb so they’re not sharp, just to be safe. A quick brush with a brass brush to give it a finished, but not super-shiny look and it was ready to go!