From formal to informal

 

A friend asked if I would convert a formal black freshwater pearl necklace (below) into an informal lariat style necklace. Photos of the completed lariat necklace are above and at the end of the blog post.

The conversion process included: de-stringing the pearls; re-drilling the pearls to increase the hole to 1.5mm to cater for the 1.5mm woven string; super glueing the pearls into place on two slightly offset strings. It was mainly a fiddly task; but good to turn the necklace into something that will now be loved and used. The re-drilling of the pearls always takes precision and care.

The end product is a lighter more open and flexible necklace that can be set to a length that suits the wearer. There are 26 pearls on the lariat.

Feedback was - "absolutely love it- it'll get heaps of wear." 

Pieces from horn, bone and shell

On Friday I started to make some jewellery from: buffalo horn; an old knife; beef bone; and pearl shell.

Over the weekend I got to finish most of the pieces.

I love the deep almost black colour of the buffalo horn. Silver and shell contrast so well against it.

©2017 Barry Smith - Buffalo horn pendants (about 4-4.5cm longhand .5cm thick)

©2017 Barry Smith - Buffalo horn earrings

©2017 Barry Smith - Buffalo horn pendants

©2017 Barry Smith - Buffalo horn pendant with silver embellishments

The old knife became a pendant with silver embellishments. The handle with the steel running through it also resulted in 3 pair of earrings.

©2017 Barry Smith - Knife handle earrings

©2017 Barry Smith - Knife handle pendant

I still love upcycling the beef bones we saved. A couple of pendants got finished with beach glass and stones; and a simple pair of earrings.

©2017 Barry Smith - Bone, stone and pale glass

©2017 Barry Smith - Bone, stone and dark green glass

©2017 Barry Smith - Bone earrings

The segments of pearl shell resulted in a simple classic pendant and a pair of earrings.

©2017 Barry Smith - Pearl drop pendant (about 5cm long and 2-3mm thick)

©2017 Barry Smith - Pearl drop earrings (about 2cm long)

The knife pendant and earrings will go off to a family member; and some of the horn, bone and shell pieces will make their way into my online Shop.

Buffalo horn and other bits

As part of the beginning of the year clean and cull I came across some odd bits and pieces I had collected or been given for making stuff out of. Some I have already used but others not.

©2017 Barry Smith - Detail of the starting material

Today I decided use:  bone I had cleaned and bleached; some pearl shell I was given about 25 years ago and used in part many years ago; some buffalo horn I was given about 7 years ago by a guy who had collected it in the NT about 40 years ago; and a bone handled knife I was asked to cut up and create some plain memory filled jewellery from.

©2017 Barry Smith - Material described about

I knew roughly that I was going to use the bits to create simple objects: pendants and earrings. The first task is cutting - and let me say that cutting bone, pearl shell and buffalo horn needs to be done in a well ventilated area and wearing a good dust mask as the fine particles are do good for the lungs at all. Cutting these materials with a fine saw takes time but enables one to get quite a few pieces from the product and still have material left over.

©2017 Barry Smith - Pieces cut

©2017 Barry Smith - Leftovers for another day

Same with the drilling of holes for pegs, embellishments and earwires; and the sanding of the cut pieces - double masks required - fine fine dust.

©2017 Barry Smith - Drilled and sanded

But the end results were good to see. I haven't used buffalo horn before - but I really like its dark texture. The horn needed a lot of grinding to get the old layers of dirt and cracked horn off.

©2017 Barry Smith - Potentially 3 pair of earrings and one pendant from the knife handle

©2017 Barry Smith - Potentially 4 pendants and a pair of earrings

©2017 Barry Smith - Potentially 5 pendants and a pair of earrings

I now need to do the final grinding and polishing of the edges before assembling the pies - but that will happen over the weekend.

Pearl shell part 2

Whilst I rejected Fiona's suggestion about cutting up the pearl shell using a 100mm side grinder with a cut off blade attached on the grounds of 'overkill'; I did think the idea could work if it were downsized. So I decided to take a similar approach with a Dremel tool and mini cutoff disk.

I did a bit of a test run in the garage last night. Two things: it worked as you can see from the photo below; and second don't ever cut up pearl shell with a Dremel inside. The amount of shell dust was amazing; and a smell similar to rotting seaweed that was emitted as the shell was cut was really bad. The smell was so bad that Fiona just put her nose in the door and immediately bolted upstairs.

Today I set myself up outside well away from the garage and in a spot that got a breeze.

As you can see from the photos below there is good and bad news: the good news is that the cutting process worked; and I managed to cut both the round pearl shapes out successfully. The bad news is I dropped one of the pieces on the bitumen driveway and chipped the front of the pearl. Another lesson learnt: put down some carpet when working with pearl outside on the driveway as it is just so soft.

I will send the pieces on the left to a friend; will keep the chipped piece as a reminder; and will give Noela and Brigit some of the off cuts below to play with.

And another conclusion I have come to is that I don't really have the patience to be a jeweler if it involves using the hand saw; but if I can use the Dremel etc then I could give some chunkier pieces a go.

Learning a new skill - cutting pearl shell

Many years ago I was given a couple of beautiful large pearl shells with 7 pearl blisters in place. I have had three of these blisters made into a pendant and earrings for Fiona. However whenever I have taken the shells to a jeweler to have the other blisters cut out so that I can give them as gifts to friends; and to harvest other interesting elements of the shells the response has always been - too hard, too labour intensive, too expensive and takes too long.

I discussed this matter with Birgit W a jeweler in our town. She said "why don't you cut them yourself?' She offered me a jewelers hand saw (her own original saw in the photo); and purchased about 20 blades for me - extremely fragile in my mind. She also gave me instructions regarding loading the blades and starting the cut.



As you can see I made myself a small cutting platform; marked out a test pattern; and got into it.

And I discovered - yes it takes a long time to cut thick pearl shell with a jeweler's saw. You see from the detailed photo of the shape I cut about half way around the shape; and that took about three quarters of an hour. Fiona has suggested another option - cutting it up with a cut off blade in my angle grinder - a bit of overkill - but I will investigate options and keep you posted.