The Making of the Rings

The Garifuna of Cayos Cochinos make jewelry and one of the things they make are rings. The raw material for the rings can be found hiking the hills of Cayos, which we did. The nuts are attached to the roots of the tree and it takes careful observation to see the little swell in the soil along the root line, dig away, and voila, unearth the nut. According to our friend, Mr Sherman Arch, the nuts come from the Cajones Tree, an appropriately named tree for wedding rings one supposes. 

John had given Bryna his Granmother's ring and the thought of having this heirloom go bouncing off the bow of Leap was not a memory any of us wished to have. So we got busy devising a plan to make the rings. 

Charlie created a jig to hold the little buggers while he sliced through them with the oscillating saw.

Next step: Clean out the nutmeat

Drill bit works great

We worked back and forth between the two of us drilling out the centers to size the rings. 

Below Charlie is roughing out the shape of the outside of the rings

We continued sanding with various grits of paper until we achieved a smooth comfortable wearable shape.

For the final step we sanded with 1200 grit wet/dry paper, polishing the rings to a beautiful walnut color.

Momentos of Cayos Cochinos