jewelry findings

Tony Falotico

Member
Messages
519
Location
Lake City, Florida
This may not be the right place to post this -- but it is a lathe project so .....

Anybody know of a reasonable source for jewelry findings? That is, the loops and studs to make ear rings (In jeweler's talk "findings"). Googled 'findings' and found some sources, pricing seems odd (read ridiculously high), wondering if anyone has a source they use. Our challenge for next months wood turner's club meeting is ear rings -- I'd like to try a few but need to find the 'parts' (err, I mean, 'findings').

Thanks, Tony
 
For eyes in my birdhouses I clip the eyes off fish hooks. They also come in colors. French hoops you can get at Michael's. What exactly do you need? Between my daughter and my junk collection we probably have it and I could send it.
Dale
 
Dale, to be honest with you I don't know what I need! Never got into the ear ring thing myself :rofl: so I don't know what is available or popular. LOML and I are looking through some books and mags right now to get some ideas, I'll try a few turnings this weekend and see where it goes. Not even sure I'll be able to turn that small (or see 'em if I do!).

Thanks for the offer, I'll let you know how it goes.

Tony
 
I was pretty sure Rings and Things required a reseller id to buy from them. I may be mistaken.

A couple of other suggestions for you.
I am not sure what exactly the project is you are doing but some helpful things for making dangly type earrings are headpins and french wires or earring studs with an attached loop. There are different materials that each of those things come in. You can pay more for the sterling silver stuff if you want to but it isn't really needed, unless whoever is going to be wearing the earrings is allergic to cheap metal. Even Sterling can bother those people. Other options are surgical steel and Niobium, the later being very hypoallergenic. I wouldn't bother paying extra for head pins if they aren't going to be touching the person's skin.
To use the headpins you would have to drill a hole straight through your piece, slide it onto the hp so that the "head" of the pin was at the bottom. There are tutorials online for making nice neat loops at the top of the pins which is much better than me trying to explain it here.
Hope this helps.... feel free to email/im/pm me if you have questions or need more help.
 
I am EXTREMELY allergic to most metals and have had to replace the wires on all of my earrings - I have found the hypoallergenic wires at Claire's (those little stores in most malls - sometimes multiples). I can wear sterling silver, but even 14K gold can set off an allergic reaction in my ears. I wear a titanium watch which has never bothered me, but even the clasp on my big-$$$ Bulova gold watch can cause a reaction.
 
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