One summer time, between college and university I worked with an independent jeweler making silver rings by hand for sale in National Trust centres and small gift shops. Now I thought each ring would take a long time to create, and you'd begin and completely finish one ring before beginning another, how wrong I was. The silver rings making process was a lot more organised than that to make sure output was profitable as well as the stocks were kept high enough for unanticipated demand.
The first part of the process is turning the standard silver wire obtained in large rolls of numerous weights into ring shapes. This is done using a special steel rod shaped like a very long taper. The raw silver wire is secured tightly at both ends and then using a twisting handle at the other end of your vice it is turned and twisted tightly into a spiral until each turn of the spiral is as close to a ring shape as possible. The tapering is usually to make sure you end up with several rings of different sizes to cater for a number of finger sizes.
After the spiral of silver is cut down the middle leaving a number of un-joined silver circles you next need to find out the way to hold a jeweller's solder safely, and the way to use the silver flux. Wearing an apron to protect your clothes, you lay out the raw silver rings onto a heat proof board in rows of ten and add the flux on the join for each ring. Moving very carefully along each ring, you heat the silver ring up using a circular motion until its molten hot but is not melting, once you see a silver flash the flux has melted and bonded together with the silver. Once the two ends are fused together, using tongs you lower the ring directly into boric acid to pickle and cleanse away the flux. Rinse them in water afterwards.
Next thing with your batch of silver ring would be to reshape them using a soft hammer and mandrel, sand away any abrasive edges then polish them up in barrels brimming with ball bearings over night.