resizing / stretching stainless steel

Hi, does anyone know how the metal material reacts to being stretched or compressed, as in a ring-resizing machine? I have made a ring that has some prongs on it for holding a stone, and these are just about springy enough to grip the stone, but I found they snapped much more easily than a wrought metal would.

I'm curious as to how larger masses behave under stress. I don't really have anything precise enough to try that wouldn't just indicate "yeah, if I hit it, it breaks".

cheers!

Thats pretty much the nature of the beast. It will give a tiny amount before the dreaded "snap". This material is very similar to what is called malleable cast iron. In can move a little bit, but it can not be hammered or bent very much before it breaks. The only safe way to "size" a ring would be with stock removal. If you are trying to set gemstones in prongs you might have to rethink your design. Better to fabricate the setting out of wrought metal and then solder them to the DMP ring body.

-G

Cheers Glen, the granulated look of the surfaces made me think that was probably the case.

I have one stone set from just snapping it in, but it's with very long prongs, so I guess there's enough flex to let me get away with it, and I was lucky too, I think.

sn

This version just held the stone in with tension alone as the stone pushed the prongs apart (the roughness of the metal surface meant it could "grip" the stone a bit too):


But I put some claws on the ends of the prongs for this version to hold it in more securely:

Thanks! It's a pretty half carat diamond I got offof ebay years ago, but it wasn't expensive because it's very flawed - full of dirt!. Lovely colour though.