is it cheating...

[Dennis]

You can serve it soft boiled as Egg Wrack Florentine - no need for spinach.

[medusa]

hmmmmm.... OK, I may give that a go. If I die, I'm coming back to haunt you!

[pearlescence]

Pearls are best set with a pin which prevents sheering after glueing. Glueing is really just a form of suction, so having a post stops the pearl from sliding off its glue (the reverse is that to unglue you need to break the suction)
Five minute epoxy is fine, though it needs to set clear or you need to be very careful in application. It is what I use all the time. Some superglues are too 'hard' setting for pearls.

[Dennis]

Yes I once sat through a lecture on adhesives by a Japanese expert. He said that what breaks the adhesion is Raterar Srip (code for lateral slip).

That said you can mitigate this by roughening the surfaces and using 24hour epoxy, which is substantially stronger. Devcon sets very clear, and the slow one, they claim, is waterproof.

I also think that if you increase the holes in small pearls, at least, then epoxy up the hole will form a sufficiently strong resin post. My work has lost the occasional stone, but never yet a pearl. Dennis.