Chainmaille Bracelet

[Christopher]

Hello everyone

I've been a lurker for more than a year, but now am finally posting something.

I made this bracelet for my cousin. As with my other projects, along the way reading back through the forum was very helpful.

I wonder if anyone could suggest how to give this a final polish? The jump rings were shiny when they came out the tumbler, but handling has slightly dulled them and gentle use of a soft cloth is as brave as I've been so far but I'm not quite happy with it. I wouldn't want to use any polishing compound, as I'm sure some would be left on the bracelet and I doubt a dunking in the ultrasonic would do the pearls any favours. I may make up a few extra links and see if the pearls survive the finest grade radial discs I have.

Also in the category of things probably no one but myself will notice , I would have preferred to have used undrilled pearls, but couldn't find undrilled round pearls at a reasonable price - the best I can find is a single pearl costing almost as much as the whole string I used for this and two other projects.

Thank you again for all the help.

[mizgeorge]

There are a number of pearl safe jewellery cleaners (I've used the Blitz one with good results) that would also bring the shine back to the silver pretty safely. I know pearls shouldn't be immersed, but I don't think I'd be that worried if they're relatively inexpensive. I'm sure Wendy will pop in with advice on this though.

As for the drilling, I think I'd be tempted to run a length of beading wire (something like softflex) with a silver core through them to keep all the holes in alignment. Crimp to finish on the final links. It should be near invisible in use, but will stop the holes from being so obvious, and also keep them from gathering dirt.

It's a very pretty piece.

[Christopher]

Thank you George, the softflex is a very clever idea.

[enigma]

That is really lovely!

[Nick martin]

Lovely looking bracelet, well done. I've never attempted anything to do with pearls... yet another thing I've got to no doubt learn at some point

Nick

[metalsmith]

Beautiful result which is just let down a little bit by the drilled pearls ... but only because the drilled-holes have no purpose: introducing the beading wire as mizgeorge suggests will give them just that.

Chain-maille is an excellent intro to jewellery making. Thanks for showing your work.