Elk Teeth

Jewelry Discussion
21

There is the American Indian tradition for one (notice the costume
of Stands With Fist in Dances with Wolves). Also, the Elk’s Lodge
members have pendants and rings for their group. A strange
necklace I saw was one that my son’s best friend was wearing, it
was made up of his wisdom teeth and a couple others he had pulled
by the dentist. Very unique…it went well with his green
mohawk! Marta

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22

I did a 14k gold casting of my nieces baby first tooth , It came out
great and Ihe wanted two of them so I made them and she kept one and
gave the other to her ex.- Husband. I took a rubber mold of the
tooth and then did a lost wax casting Yours: Billy S. Bates royalminiatures.com

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23

A while back I made an ear cuff for a writer of vampire novels. It
had a human canine tooth and a garnet “blood drop.” It took me
several calls to dentists to find one who saved teeth for a local
dental school. An interesting project!

Janet Kofoed

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24 
   There is the American Indian tradition for one (notice the
costume of  Stands With Fist in Dances with Wolves).

This is true, but it’s main purpose was to show the prowess of a
hunter being able to provide well, in the days of bows and arrows,
not high power hunting rifles with scopes.

   Also, the Elk's Lodge members  have pendants and rings for their
group.

True also, and you can understand the affiliation. I’ve done lots of
different things with elks teeth for these groups, including the
rings, pendants, earrings, watch fobs, buckles, cuff bracelets, money clips, etc.

25 
 why would you want to wear elk teeth around your neck on a cord
(or any teeth/animal parts

carvers look to carve all the woods that are out there, especially
knots, and distressed wood, and ivory is known to be the most
luxurious material to carve, naturally follows that we want to carve
seashells, turtle shells, horn, etc, some some people look for it or
buy it, or kill for it, but to answer the question, these different
anatomical parts always look fantastic when they are left just like
they are, au natural, like the tip of an antler, a sharks tooth, a
bear claw, throw some metal and engraving into it for embellishment
and you got a regular human talisman, have you ever meditated on
seashells or croc skin,
awesome stuff, dp

26

Elk tooth bezel

I work a lot with elk tooth ivory at http://www.elkvalleygold.com/
On page 4 of my elk ivory jewelry you will find a picture of an elk
tooth with a nice bezel cap.

Here is a simple way to make a bezel cap:

  1. Heat up your injection wax - I just turn up my wax pot a bit
    until it is relatively runny. You want it hotter than you would
    normally inject into a rubber mold because you want it to be thinner.

  2. Sand the stem of the elk tooth so that it is relatively smooth
    with no bumps or rough spots that will catch as you remove a wax dip
    bezel. Also trim the end of the tooth root flat with a jewelers saw

  3. Dip the root end of the tooth into the wax up to and beyond where
    you want a bezel to be. Remove quickly and hold root end down to let
    the wax run back to a drip on the end.

  4. Once the wax has hardened, cut a line in it with an Exacto Knife
    exactly where you want the bezel to extend to.

  5. Carefully pull on the hardened drip and the wax cap should come
    free. It forms a vacuum and also may bond to the tooth so you may
    have to slip the Exacto Blade under the edge of the wax to help free
    it.

  6. You now have a wax cap that fits the tooth perfectly. Trim off
    the drip, add a wax bail, sprue and cast. Or solder a bail on after
    you cast the bezel cap.

While casting a cap like this may seem more time consuming, it is an
easy process and the results are worth while. I have made caps by
fabricating them and soldering them but they never look as good as
the ones produced by this method do and they require more work.

Good luck.
Bill Bell.