Since I was about to graduate, I decided to go down to the school store and get fitted for a school ring. It all went fine until the told me the price; $450 for the basic ring. No thanks! Anyway, it looked like every other school ring ever, gigantic, with some crappy semi-precious stone and too much symbolic engraving. I decided it would be much cooler to make my own ring. Luckily, as a Mechanical Engineer, I have access to a pretty darn nice machine shop. Let me appologize in advance for the crappy cameraphone pictures.

Since the design was simple enough, I decided that I would do it without any drawings or CAD to go from. To start with, I got myself a nice hunk of aluminum bar stock, about 1" diameter by 6" length.

The next step whats to get it on a lathe, and face the end of the piece, then turn it down to an appropriate size. Since I used once inch diameter stock, I didn't have to turn it down too far. I then drilled out the center with a 3/4" drill bit, which took quite a while at very low speed to prevent heat build up.

At this point, the ring is ready to be parted from the rest of the tube. This operation also needed to be done very slowly and carefully, since the ring is so delicate.

At this point, I fine tuned the ring by boring it out slighly until it fit comfortably, and beveling the edges for comfort and to look cool. I now had a plain solid aluminum ring. However, I thought it would be cool to have something a bit fancier. So I took the ring out of the lathe, and over to a vertical mill. I created a special jig for the part out of a large nut and bolt.

With the ring in the simple jig, I could start drilling holes.

And, of course, the image you have all been waiting for, the final product:

This was before I deburred it and polished it, so it looks even better now. And I have a unique class ring that cost me nothing more than some scrap aluminum and a few hours. What says "Mechanical Engineering Graduate" more. a gold monstrosity that looks like something from a bad mafia movie, or a piece of machined aluminum?