I found an interesting article online which suggests protecting a stone/bead with wet paper when balling up the final end of wire to secure it in place. I immediately thought 'oooo, that would work with those pearls I bought because they were pretty'. My next thought was 'if I ball up Sterling wire I'm going to need to pickle it'. Having read Kwant's thread on pickling turtles I know some stones can be pickled, I'm guessing pearls do not fit in that group.
I suppose I have a few questions for the experts here:
What is safe to pickle?
Could I get away with just cleaning up the wire without pickling?
Do I use fine silver wire instead?
Will either of the last two options work given the rest of the piece is likely to need pickling after the wire its balled up anyway? !
My current plan is to use the pearls along with a bit of epoxy something. I'm only really picking brains for future reference.
Nammie
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