How to use a JumpRinger®....
.....Or, at least how I do it.


(click on any given image to enlarge the view...)



First, put the blade onto the blade holder thingy...
You'll see there's a notch on it, and one cut away from the center of the blade itself, so obviously you just wanna match those up for a perfect fit.










Shown here is the way that looks when you get it on properly.











Now you put the cap on that, and note that the inside of the cap has the same kinda notch in it, to tell where you want it to go for that perfect fit mentioned before.











Place the screw into the cap, and tighten it all up nice & snug.











Place the blade holder into the handle of your flexshaft, and use a chuck key thingy to tighten up the hold.










Now slide up the arbor
(which shoulda been put on/over the flexshaft handle before the saw holder went in, sorry I'm a little bit retarded and didn't say that before)









Use the black screw thingies on the sides of the arbor (see above) to tighten the arbor onto/over the blade holder which is of course on the flexshaft handle. take special care to look down like this picture shows, to make sure it's centered properly, you don't want the blade to drag on the inside of the arbor, SERIOUSLY.





Alright... now that this boring setup part is over with,
let's make some effing RINGS already!






Put a little bend in the end of the wire you're using (Ray Grossman, the actual inventor/head of the JumpRinger® company suggests NOT using soft wire, as it will dull your blades faster, which with the costs of the blades, you're better off not wearing them out needlessly)...
Slide the bent wire into the winder chuck as shown here...








Now place your mandrel in, and make sure when you tighten it up that the little bent end of the wire will stay secure while you're winding it.
I have a set of mandrels from Karat 46 jeweler supply that ROCK, 'cos they actually have holes in them to stick the end of the wire thru and it holds them way easier... but I used a regular mandrel here since most people don't have the mandrels with holes...
(but you should get some, they rule, and Kenneth Singh (Karat 46 Jeweler's Supply) is a fantastic guy to buy from)





Start winding the coil winder... Did I mention you shoulda screwed this or clamped it securely to your work area? If not, there ya go.










As you wind with your dominant hand (my right as you saw above), use your other hand (my left as seen here) to help guide the wire as it's coiling...
I used to wear a leather finger cot for this to help with the "wire burn" you can get, but I'm pretty toughed up at this point... and hey, what's another injury anyway? Being a metalsmith, I sorta collect them.





Now, here's a personal preference, I like to cut my full coils in half--and I'll explain why.
When I remove my coil from the mandrel, I cut it in half and saw the two halves separately. Why? 'Cos crap can go wrong, and you can easily waste a "batch" or "coil" of rings.
In fact, AS I was cutting the rings from the VERY coil you see here, I busted a blade on the first half of the coil I cut!!!
(Which was kinda good, since I had to change the blade anyways, I decided to take the pics of putting together the blade holder thingy/arbor you first saw above..)
So the first half of the coil with the saw busting, had all kinds of unusable links... But by cutting the coil in half before sawing it, at least I had the second half of the coil to saw. It's just a preference, and not a strict rule, but I thought I'd toss it in here to be nice. You're welcome!




Now this another preference of mine... I stick wooden dowels and/or toothpicks (or a combo of both, like here) into my coil. It helps support the coil as it's being cut so it doesn't collapse and mess stuff up. Seriously cuts back on the REALLY aggravating mistake of completely sawing the coil thru to the other side, too. There's not a whole lotta uses for a stack of jumprings that are all sawed completely in half. In fact, none that I can think of, except feeding the scrap pile.







Lube up the coil before cutting. Always, always, always.










Put the coil into the coil holder (whichever slot that it's able to stick *just slightly* over the top of) and screw on the cover. Then with yer flexshaft foot pedal, press down till yer on "Holy crap fast", and place the arbor over the coil holder (it fits perfectly, so don't be afraid), then QUICKLY push the arbor (the arrows indicate direction) and the sawblade will be going through the slit in the coil holder... It's intimidating at first, but put the pedal to the metal and just rock that bastard, baby! DO NOT ease up on the speed of the flexshaft, and do NOT run the arbor/saw over the holder more than once, NOR go the opposite direction of the arrows, at any time.




Ta-freakin-daaaaaaa!!!!!!
You made jump rings!

And as an aside, if you lost an eye in the process, don't go blaming me. These may not be perfect directions, but if you combine 'em with common sense, you'll do fine. And if not... Well, don't sue me (seriously, I got nuthin')

Curiosity? Comments? Criticism? Contact!

Home