White Copper Command Script Open Ring

The two characters qian and kun come from the Book of Changes. The qian hexagram is six unbroken lines, pure yang; kun is six broken lines, pure yin; the pair stands at the head of the sixty-four. In common usage qian and kun stand in for heaven and earth, and also for man and woman, above and below, which is a far wider use than the hexagrams themselves, turning up in opera lyrics and in martial arts manuals. In the Changes, the judgement on qian reads “sublime success, beneficial perseverance”, and on kun, “the perseverance of a mare is beneficial”. Both lines are often cut into objects.

Four characters on the face, white copper, open and adjustable. The women's face is narrow with shallow cuts; the men's is broad and deeper, and the two carry different weight. To adjust an open ring, pinch the two sides rather than the face. The face carries the characters, and pressure there distorts it, closing the cuts until the strokes run together. The four are in relief, standing only a little proud, so the finger finds them without being scratched. The men's and women's versions differ in more than width; the spacing of the characters differs slightly too.

On character rings in the talismanic line, the letters have to stand. These four are not evenly spaced: the first runs slightly large, the last is drawn in, and the two in the middle press together. That imitates the layout of a hand-written talisman, and even spacing would take the character out of it. Quality of cutting shows at the turns — a square corner should be clean, a round one continuous, with no burr left where the graver paused. Both edges of the face are eased into a curve, so no hard line presses into the gap between fingers over time. The face is polished before cutting, not after; reverse the order and the cuts come up rough.

There is no rule about which hand. The left sees less work and wears more slowly; the right is more visible and meets more people. Worn long, an open ring leaves a faint line around the finger that fades overnight, so there is nothing to worry about. Do not leave the band stretched to its widest for long stretches: copper has a memory, and held open it will not come back, so the ring goes loose. The gap is set once at the factory and needs no major adjustment when it arrives. There is no need to take it off to wash your hands, only to dry it, since soap left in the cuts dries to a white film.

White copper blackens on contact with sulphur, and rubber bands, the cheap ones especially, contain it, so do not keep the ring in the same drawer. If it has already gone black, work a little copper polish in with a soft cloth. Do not pick at the dark inside the cuts: that is the fill, and once it comes out the bare metal shows as a bright patch that looks worse than the black did. Wipe over with a cloth rinsed in clean water afterwards to lift the polish residue. Keep white copper away from sulphur soap, which cuts grease hard and will blacken the metal at once.