I understand a bit of your dilemma. My mother who passes away last
year had a favorite string of “pearls” - again glass beads about 3/4
inches in diameter and a bit knobby. She loved them, but had macular
degeneration a refused to throw them out, even though half the
finish was gone. I considered trying the nail polish route, but had
feelings similar to yours. I thought I solved the problem when I
finally found another huge ugly strand at a second hand shop, but
every so often I would see her in the old strand. Well, it made her
happy so, since I was the one it bothered, I just let it go.
As an aside, much of the pearlized paint you see on cars actually
uses ground fish scales for there finish. I spoke with a person who
also said it was a common practice to use fish scales in a paint like
matrix for fake pearls and mabe blisters. I think you should give the
paint a shot.
Marlin in snowy Denver - getting tired of this weather.
I’m sure my first action on this would be to trawl around the local
charity shops, followed by the local auction houses… This should
find part worn beads that, after you have worked your magic in
restringing them, she would not know from her originals. Other than
that you could try Ebay <> and knock them about a bit
yourself…
At the risk of repeating myself and boring everyone senseless, I
feel that I must go through with this project. I can’t mislead her. I
don’t do lying and if I replaced them with other beads, I feel that
I would be doing just that. They arrived in my possession via my
husband who went round to see his parents. When I saw the state of
the “pearls”, I asked him why on earth he hadn’t told them NO. He
just said “do your best - it’s all she has left of my grandma”. I
have tried repeatedly to get him to explain to his mother that it is
almost impossible but all he will say on the subject is “just do
your best”! At one point he got shirty and said that if I don’t do
them then he will. He is not artistic in the slightest and doesn’t
really pay attention to detail so I feel that I must do it. I will
get back to everyone as to how it went but it will be a while as I’ve
a few other commitments first.
I’m actually looking forward to doing it now - if nothing else, the
defiant part of my personally wants to do it because everyone says
it’s not possible. It’s our human nature, if someone says you can’t
do it, you want to do it even more.
I do really appreciate your sentiments though Tess, thank you, and I
appreciate the advice of everyone who has either advised me not to
do it, to save me from an embarrassing situation and a very labour
intensive job and those who have offered practical ideas and advice.
I’ll have to put pictures on Flickr afterwards.
Bless your heart! Don’t forget to write what will be one heck of an
article on horror stories or favors or family feuds or faux-fixings.
Then post it. I would think the process will be enlightening to a lot
of people…especially newer folks to the field who feel bold enough
to say “yes, I will…”.
Thanks for your candor, too…it’s not always easy to say “urgh!
this is a mess!” in public. The good news is, it’s obviously not your
mess, just one you’re trying to clean up.
As an aside, much of the pearlized paint you see on cars actually
uses ground fish scales for there finish
One of the by products of the herring fishery here in SF bay is that
the scales go mostly to Japan to make faux pearls and I guess the
paint, too. The mackerel skins go to making lubricating jelly, BTW.
You’re one of only two people who have been able to truly think
outside the box and visualize what I’m trying to do. I know it’s
possible to do, I’ve sprayed panels with auto paint a few times with
great success and am convinced that it will work.
Helen, O.K. it is time for you to take a firm stand. You are being
pressured into doing something that obviously is fraught with all
kinds of problems. It is the kind of situation that would send me to
the nearest pub
My suggestion is that, if your husband got you into this situation,
and has offered to do the resurrection himself, go ahead and let him
do it. So his work may be shoddy, and not up your standards. So what.
Seems like you are being bullied, and it is time for you to just take
a firm stand and back away from this situation.
So there is a lot of sentiment involved as far as the fake pearls
are concerned. Again, I say, so what. They are just things. Seems to
me that your feelings should be more important than an old momento.
But then again, perhaps I am being hard-hearted.
Yes it will be a bit of an epic, once I get round to carrying on
with the project. I’ve still got to buy the paint yet.
You wait, after my successful painting of said glass beads, we’ll
see Orchideans using my auto paint technique to repair customers’
faux pearls that they simply can’t live without (this I say with my
tongue firmly planted in my cheek, but you never know, maybe I should
patent it! ).
I'm sure my first action on this would be to trawl around the
local charity shops, followed by the local auction houses.. This
should find part worn beads that, after you have worked your magic
in restringing them, she would not know from her originals.
I’m afraid my conscience won’t allow me to do that. It would be
lying to her and I can’t do that. The beads in question are now
perfectly serviceable and I am looking forward to painting them when
I’ve got the spare money to source and buy the paint. Plan B if it
all fails is to make her a new one with some gorgeous freshwater
pearls I picked up yesterday at the Spring Fair jewellery show. They
are not graduated so she’d know they were different beads but then I
will always be straight up and honest with her anyway, just as I
would be with anyone else.
But thanks for the advice. I appreciate you trying to help me out in
such a tricky situation.
No, honestly I’m not being bullied or pressured into anything beyond
what is normal in the particular relationship in question. I’ll
email you offlist more specifically as I don’t wish to air laundry of
any kind in a public forum.
The only reason why this project isn’t already well under way is
because I need to wait until I have a spare bit of money to buy the
paint to do it. I’ve also had a couple of other projects which took
priority. When I have the paint and a nice dry day, I’m actually
looking forward to doing that part of the project as I feel it is
the least problematic stage of the whole thing and it may be fun. I
could graduate them and string them or mount them ready for painting
in the meantime though and may do that this evening with the help of
one of my daughters.
Honestly, at first, because of the state they were in, I couldn’t
see a way round the problem at hand, but then when I came up with the
idea of the auto paint I was happy about the whole thing and actually
looking forward to being able to solve the whole problem in a
practical way. Also once I’d cleaned them of all the nasty years’
old grease and grime and had nice clean beads ready to be painted, it
all seemed less of a problem too.
Thanks to all those who have tried to spare my feelings from what
seems like a monumental problem, but I am actually looking forward
to doing it when I’ve sourced the right product for the job.
Incidentally, I bought a fair few strands of the most beautiful
freshwater pearls yesterday at a jewellery fair so if the job goes
wrong I will make her a new necklace out of some of those and I know
she’d be happy wearing the genuine article. So there is a plan B at
hand and if plan A goes wrong I’ll not get upset about it as I don’t
think it’s worth the energy or anguish to do that. I’ll simply
switch to plan B.
If you are decided on painting the ‘pearls’, why bother spraying?
I’m sure that when I visited the Majorca Pearl factory, they just
dipped the glass beads in a vat of ‘paint’ - here is a link to a
description
they are considered to be one of the best kinds of ‘fake’ pearls.
Maybe you should visit the factory as a bit of background research -
its nice and warm at this time of year…!!!
If you are decided on painting the 'pearls', why bother spraying?
I'm sure that when I visited the Majorca Pearl factory, they just
dipped the glass beads in a vat of 'paint' - here is a link to a
description
I am spraying precisely to avoid the problems associated with
dipping in liquid paint. A pearlised coating has particles that want
to settle and if you dip in such a paint, as the excess drips off and
the paint settles, the pearlised particles will sink to the lower
part of the beads. Spray-painting is good because it goes on in a
fine mist and dries very quickly without the paint having chance to
slump or puddle. I’m familiar with the process, having done it before
so don’t experience the same problems that many people have when
they are too impatient and try to cover in one coat - that’s when you
get the dripping and slumping problems associated with brushing or
dipping.
Also if you read the following method from the website you directed
me to, you’ll notice that it is a multi-stage process, involving
polishing of each bead after dipping and drying, for every layer put
on the bead!!! Talk about labour intensive. This project is already
labour intensive. Have you ever painted anything where the finish
has to be spot on? If you have you’ll know that spray painting is
easier when it comes to getting a good finish, faster than brush
painting or dipping, goes onto the surface far more uniformly, dries
faster, etc, etc. The list of advantages of spraying over brushing
or dipping is long.
Majorica pearls are not formed like regular pearls in mollusks,
instead they go through a man made process and start off as a solid
glass ball that is coated with a special paste.
In starting, the highly trained workers of the Majoirca Pearl
factory create a nucleus by melting an opaque piece of glass rod over
a torch. The melted glass flows onto a coated copper wire which is
electromechanically rotating. From here the workers are able to gage
the size of the nucleus by the intensity of the flame and the way
they rotate the wire. They usually get the nucleus to be around 1mm
thick.
They get the glass to be the same shape, size and density that of
a real pearl.
The new glass nucleus is then dropped into a special pearl liquid
called hemage. These nuclei are dipped in high quality essence
d’orient and polished between dippings These nuclei are then dipped
into a special, pearly liquid called “hemage,” an adhesive paste
made of oil and ground up fish scales or mother-of-pearl for their
iridescence. The exact formula of this essence is closely guarded.
After the nucleus has been dipped in the hemage and has been
coated, then it is dried and polished. This is done by hand to get
rid of any imperfections that may arise.
The almost new faux pearl is coated at least 30 times, until there
is couple of layers. This is also done to help increase the density
and the uniformity of color.
After it was coated the pearls are dried in a time and atmosphere
controlled environment.
To ensure that the new pearls will last, they are layers that were
created in the steps above will go through different steps to make
sure they won’t discolor, chip or peel. This is done with the use of
different gases and solutions.
Then they are drilled and assembled into necklaces by specially
trained workers.
Note the 30 times!!! No thanks.
Maybe you should visit the factory as a bit of background research
- its nice and warm at this time of year....!!! ;-)
Now that really would make it an expensive repair!!! I don’t
think my in-laws would understand that I needed to visit exotic
locations in order to fix the necklace, but it’s a nice thought.
Majorca Pearl factory... [snip]... Maybe you should visit the
factory as a bit of background research - its nice and warm at this
time of year
Ooh, I agree, that would make a lovely trip this time of year! We
were there a few years ago, I think it was Easter weekend. Stunning,
really. You know, I never made that connection when I was there, of
Majorca & pearls. Duh! Per the description on that site they are made
on the mainland now, but perhaps one could still find something there
about them. It was a quick trip, though, and we had to spend so much
of our time walking along the beach promenade (one day one direction,
next day other direction) & sampling all the different restaurants’
sangrias. Oh, and watching our 1-year old experience the beach
for the first time. Very nice. I’d go back there again!
).