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 Post subject: can you recommend a supplier for pearl settings and cages?
PostPosted: Mon Mar 05, 2018 9:14 pm 
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Location: Wylie Texas but in Alaska for a while
My daughter has picked up quite a few pearls.(I guess at least 200)

We looked at the settings at Rio Grande and they have a limited number of settings.

She has enough that she is thinking about doing something with them.

Probably various cages, earrings, and rings.

Silver (I would prefer Argentium myself) is fine.

Thanks.


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 Post subject: Re: can you recommend a supplier for pearl settings and cage
PostPosted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:14 am 
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Hi Ted, Cookson Gold (in the UK) has some nice findings. Be careful about putting pearls in rings though, rings get a lot of hammer and pearls are soft.


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 Post subject: Re: can you recommend a supplier for pearl settings and cage
PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2018 10:35 pm 
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How about drilling them and making them into a strand? I think it could be interesting with multiple sizes, colors and shapes.


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 Post subject: Re: can you recommend a supplier for pearl settings and cage
PostPosted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 8:17 am 
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Yes, a necklace is a perfect way to use pearls, particularly now there is a fashion for assorted colours in the same necklace (a big time pearl dealer of my acquaintance tells me that, in the days of matched pearls for a necklace, he might have to examine 2,000 or 3,000 pearls before finding enough for a necklace), and that, he says, is with a staff of girls who can grade pearls as fast as they can pick them up and put them down. He also said that fully 1/3 of the cost of a necklace was in the grading.


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 Post subject: Re: can you recommend a supplier for pearl settings and cage
PostPosted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 7:46 pm 
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Thanks, I will suggest that to my daughter.

I think that I see making or buying a drilling machine in my future.


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 Post subject: Re: can you recommend a supplier for pearl settings and cage
PostPosted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:14 pm 
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Could do it with a flex shaft and a padded vice.


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 Post subject: Re: can you recommend a supplier for pearl settings and cage
PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 12:51 am 
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Sounds good, I will look for the padded vice setup,


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 Post subject: Re: can you recommend a supplier for pearl settings and cage
PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 12:51 pm 
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I found this on eBay
https://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Drilling-V ... ision+Work


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 Post subject: Re: can you recommend a supplier for pearl settings and cage
PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 1:28 pm 
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Yes, these are good, I have one myself, but they are slow if you have a lot to drill. I noticed an excellent looking machine on the Banggood site, worth a look. Things to remember, always string your pearls on silk, it gives an incomparable feel and hang to your pearls, and always put a knot between each one, firstly it stops them rubbing together and abrading, for they are amongst the softest of gems and also, should you have the misfortune to have a string break, you are only searching for one pearl.


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 Post subject: Re: can you recommend a supplier for pearl settings and cage
PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 4:36 pm 
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Location: Wylie Texas but in Alaska for a while
I like this one as well. I think that the guide for the drill will help.


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