Does anyone have a source for small quantities of 8mm solid
sterling silver beads (balls) that do not have drill holes. The
only analogy I can think of is a ball bearing but only made of
sterling silver. I have located a company called Abbott Ball but
they require a min purchase of 100 @ approx $1.?? ea.
Thanks
Bob Bonvino
Hello Bob, Try James Murphy & Son Inc. beads. They’ve done one hole
balls for me before and I believe they said they start by creating a
ball with no holes and then drilling it. If that’s the case they can
do a ball in any size in silver. Their NY rep is Jimmy Sklaroff at
212 684 3835. The company number is 508 761 5060, located in
Massachusetts.
Leda Lee
Bob, I’ve always made my own silver balls and the process is quite
easy. Take a small amount of scrap silver or wire or whatever you
have laying around that is good clean sterling (or pure .999 silver
for that matter) and get one of those steel plates with the
half-sphere holes in them. The size of the half sphere will help
determine the size of the ball you end up with, as well as how much
silver you put into the bottom of the cup. Fire up your torch and
melt the silver and chase it up the sides of the half-sphere cup to
cause it to round itself out and as you slowly back away form the
silver letting it cool and solidify you have a very nice pretty much
perfectly round silver ball. I have never drilled them, I use them
as decorations around an outer edge of a pendant or ring. Hope that
helps. If you don’t have a good torch probably one of the little
micro-torches will do the trick nicely ( a hand held refillable torch
not to be confused with “The Little Torch” of recent discussion).