Thread: Making rolls for rings in jewellery box

I use polystyrene gap filler. It comes as a coiled up cylinder in various diameters - I use 12mm - and you can cut the lengths you need.I also use a 12mm dia punch to cut the leather for the ends.
You can cut the leather and glue it to the cylinders, with the seam at the bottom. Lay them side by side with a gap between them for the rings.

However, a word of extreme caution. In the past I've used PVA glue. Usually, there is some time between making them and putting jewellery in them, and that's been OK. However, the last time I did it there was a bit of a rush, and I only finished the day before I gave it to my wife. DISASTER! Two 9 carat gold rings just crumbled. The jeweller had never seen anything like it happen before, so I did quite a bit of research. Apparently museum and art gallery curators know about this. When it's going off, PVA glue off-gasses acetic acid fumes, which can affect alloys and documents. They therefore allow a month between using the glue and using the box. Alternatively, you could use a contact adhesive.

Thanks Alex, never heard of this product before, but found it in the big green brick store
10mm diameter, sounds just right

Hi Dengue

I used dowel rods covered in woollen felt (not the cheap synthetic felt), and used spray adhesive (contact glue) to adhere. The diameter of the rods has to be just right for the section in the tray/box - I used 18 mm which worked very well. Alternatively use a thinner dowel and extra layers of felt/suede to bulk it out. I don't know if that is the correct way, but it worked well for me.

Re my previous post: Anthony's idea of using spray-on contact adhesive might be better than using PVA, as i think that the solvents would evaporate much more quickly. I'm not sure how the polystyrene would handle that though.

I use the gap roller roll as Alex described but use a hot glue gun with felt. I cut them to 1mm longer than the width of the tray going in so they stay snug but don’t crush up.

Hey Mate. I use the hair rolls you find in the cheapy shops like crazy clarks or kmart if you want to go up market lol. I make the housing in my box then cut the roll to length. They come in packs of six and each one is about 150 mm long. They are made out of foam and work very well. To cut my velvet to the correct size to fit around the roll I mark a line on the end of the cut roll and then mark its position on a surface, then roll it till the line is again in contact with the surface you are on. Measure between the two marks and that is your material length required. I use velvet and then I just use contact spray glue I get from bunnings and roll the roll again over the material... simple as and then I just put the finished number required into my compartment and they fit perfect and take rings perfectly. When sizing the compartment to house the rolls always make it approx 3 mm less wide that the completed number of rolls. This way they fit firm without squashing them.


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After some fiddling about with materials on hand I finally bought some split pigskin and polyethylene gap filler rod (10mm - 12 not available) then had a go at fitting ring holders to a small box.

It turned out like this:

P1120617 - [654 x 800].jpg

It looks OK but I still think it could be better and there were a few issues that I solved by doing things a bit differently to the process described earlier in this thread.

A few of the unexpected things were:
- PVA glue would not stick the pigskin to the plastic filler rod. Did not matter too much as I just overlapped the pigskin and made a tube around the filler. This actually worked out well for the next issue.
- Had trouble making neat ends on the rolls. The filler rod comes coiled so has a permanent curved set. This means that when it is straightened on a bench to cut to length it is OK but then adopts the slight curve when released and this puts the cut end at an angle. Being flexible it also tends to cup while being cut. The pigskin also had to be glued perfectly or there would be a slight mismatch at the glue joint which then needed to be trimmed. Solved this be removing the filler after gluing and then flattening the pigskin on a cutting board for trimming. The filler slid back in easily enough.
- Could not get the rolls to sit in place in the box - they were either too loose or too tight and bunched up. Tried different lengths but could not get it right. This may have something to do with the base of the box being curved. Anyhow I solved this by making end strips and a base piece and gluing all these together to form a single insert. Seems to work but it took a stupid amount of time and fiddling. Luckily the cut end of the filler stuck to the pigskin - probably due to cutting through the closed cells in the foam.

Has anyone else had similar issues and if so what are your remedies?

Also, is there a recommended size for the gap between the rolls?

Takes a lot of experimenting to get ring lines right.
D10155BB-FF2A-4A7E-8B9E-D91D786F8C54.jpg