Hi Judy:
From previous discussions on Orchid, what you’re doing seems a bit
difficult. Glue has been suggested as a way to hold the wire inside
the pearl. You would ball the ends of 2 wires before inserting into
the pearl at opposing ends. Another very neat sounding idea was
talked of a while back. I don’t remember all, but I believe it had a
reference to “victorian”. Two separate wires’ ends were drawn into a
ball. One wire was split down the middle a tiny bit with a jeweler’s
saw. Then the wires were inserted at opposing ends until they met.
They were then tapped slightly with a hammer. The split wire would
open just enough to envelop the end of the other wire and hold both
inside the pearl. In your case, you were trying to work with a heat
sink. Is this “sand bed” maybe taking too much heat away? Have you
considered trying any of the commercially available heat sinks? Here
is a discussion on a medieval technique.
I couldn’t find anything on the “split wire” technique I described
above. Am I misremembering this thread?
Good Luck
Kim Starbard
Cove Beads