Have you ever noticed how small the holes are in drilled pearls? It must be because many people use needle and thread for knotting pearls. I recently wanted to wire some lovely pearls with embedded Swarovski crystals using 22G wire which I thought was fine enough for a pendant. I had great difficulty passing it through the pearls. I was about to call Debbie who I knew had a fine pearl reamer set when I had an idea.I took a length of (finer) 26 G wire and deliberately trimmed the end at an angle to get a point. I used that to scrap the insides of the pearls using a sawing motion to enlarge the holes and it worked! Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.
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Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
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This method works most of the time, especially if you just have to enlarge the hole just a little. But bead reamers are so fast, a few seconds vs. a few minutes... if you use pearls often and find the holes are too small for your usual wire, the time savings of having your own reamers is worth it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Diana. This was just a makeshift method for those who don't use pearls a lot. I will invest in a pearl reamer.
ReplyDeleteNeat idea. A customer had trouble with one of our tiny bean products not having large enough holes, I wish I had thought of this as a suggestion for her. I might just link anyone else who buys them to this post from now on!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Emi
I never would have thought of trying that! Great in a pinch, thanks Pearl!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea...thanks for sharing...I've also had problems with pearls on occasion!!!
ReplyDeleteCheers
Great idea! I use a reamer but will definatley give this a try next time. Thanks for the tip!
ReplyDelete-Stephanie