Not long ago, Peter Brown had a video about making his own wood and resin rings inspired by Secret Wood Rings. I knew my sister would love one, so I set out to make her such a ring for Christmas.

I took some 1/4” maple, clamped it down to my bench with a portion overhanging the edge, and broke off pieces with a mallet. It took a few tries, but eventually I got a few good breaks that would work well.

I didn’t have any resin dye, but I figured I’d try powdered wood dye. While it didn’t give the most consistent coloring, it worked out in the end. I taped up around the blanks to make a sort of cup out of masking tape and poured the resin in. After curing, I flattened each blank, drilled a hole out to make the ‘ring’ part, and cut a rough profile out on the bandsaw.

This project involved a lot of sanding and shaping. For the resin part, I thought it would be best to try to give it a gem feel with lots of flat surfaces intersecting at interesting angles, rather than something with softer edges.

While this picture is without finish, adding a little spray lacquer really made everything pop.