Turn an Old Nut Into a Beautiful Ring With This Handy Guide

Next, heat up the nut using your blowtorch. You want to make it red hot. For the best result, hang the nut with a piece of metal wire and heat it directly. 

Step 2: Begin to work the nut

Leave to cool, and then place the nut inside a vice. Using a large metal file, begin to work on the inside diameter of the nut. 

Keep removing the nut's threading until the inner surface is completely smooth. 

Use a large round file to make a relatively short work of this. Continue to file the inside of the nut until the inner diameter is about 45/64ths of an inch (18.3 mm). 

Next, take a marker pen and mark out the parts of the outer nut your want to remove. Place the but back into your vice and saw off thin slivers of the bolt.

Saw directly downwards to the thickness you want the final ring to be. Turn the nut in the vice and continue to saw off excess material as needed. Using a hack saw is recommended as it will give you more control over the process than something like a Dremel. 

For this particular ring, you are aiming to leave the nut with an overall wedge shape when viewed in profile. 

Once you have trimmed off the amount of material wanted, turn the nut and hold it horizontally in your vice. Grab your metal files once again, and file down the cut edges until smooth and level. 

Use a variety of fineness of files until the surfaces are as smooth as possible. Turn the nut over and do the same for the other cut surface as needed. 

Once complete, remove the nut ring and visually inspect it. If more filing is needed, replace the nut inside the vice and continue to file the exposed edges. 

Step 3: File down the outer edges of the nut to form the ring

Next, place the nut in the vice once again vertically. Using your metal files begin to remove the outer angled edges to make an overall ring shape, as needed. Take out the nut and rotate in the vice until all angled edges have been filed away, 

Also, take the time to curve the outer edges too. Keep going until a rough ring shape has been formed in the old nut. 

Work the ring inside and out until you are happy with the overall look and texture of the ring. This will take some time, so enjoy the process.

In this particular case, the ring will retain one of the flat edges of the nut to form the top of the ring. You can make the entire thing a pure ring if desired. 

Step 3: Continue to refine the ring

Next, remove the worked nut and begin to use a series of various sandpaper grades to further refine the texture of the ring. Work it so that the ring's outer and inner surfaces become as smooth as possible.

Once again, this will take some time to complete.

Step 4: Continue to buff and polish the ring

Next, grab your Dremmel and add your metal polishing attachments. Begin to work the ring inside and out. 

Use a variety of attachments and polish all exposed surfaces of the ring as best you can. Use water to provide some form of lubrication when doing this. 

Work the inner surface of the ring some more until the diameter increase to around 47/64ths of an inch (18.6 mm).

Grab some more sandpaper and work the ring outside and inside once again to further refine the aesthetic look of the ring. You want to shine it up as much as you can so that it begins to look like an actual piece of jewelry. 

Step 5: Polish the ring

Next, grab some metal polish and begin to work the ring's inner and outer surfaces. 

Buff and polish the ring until you are happy with its appearance. Continue to polish the entire ring inside out. 

You want to give the ring a beautiful and shiny luster. 

Inspect the ring from time to time and polish any areas that are not "quite right." 

With that, your nut-come-ring is finally complete. Now you can wear it with pride. Now you will probably be on the hunt for something else to do. How about restoring an old anvil?