Gem Stones For Free?

[Dennis]

Some years ago, I saw a pile of broken safety glass glistening in the road and never one to pass up found objects, I put a small handful in my pocket.

My first impulse was to turn some of it into jewellery by wire wrapping, but it is not a technique I’m familiar with and my experiments were not promising. So there it has been in a drawer, asking to be used until I finally decided on a more conventional approach.

The pieces were relatively smooth, but of assorted sizes and any sharp corners were easily removed with a medium file.
For a start I decided to make ear studs, with equal 13mm square bases to give some uniformity. The centres of the squares were cut away in a fancy shape to accommodate ear posts. For a kind of claw retention, I used staples of various lengths made from 0.70mm round wire. After soldering, the posts were work hardened by twisting and the staples by flexing.

Once tumbled, setting was easily done with my favourite soft tool, the square end of a cane chop- stick. This did not leave marks on the metal and no further finishing was required.

So, having settled on a method, I completed the suite shown below. The ring has rails to guard against knocks. The pendant is hung from nylon covered steel cable.

Can it be worn? Well, the glass has multiple cleavage lines, so in case it falls apart I shall keep it close to home. So far it is well behaved and looks quite interesting. I hope it will prove a talking point for our next student show at college and hopefully on this forum. It could also be a way of mounting other rough rocks.

Dennis.