Jewelry Repair Class?

Jewelry/Small Metals
#1

Hi! I’m new to DMS.

I realized I have amassed a large collection of costume and quality jewelry that is all broken in some shape or form. Some of it I did (snapped chains, crushed rings I stepped on, etc) and some of it I bought that way from thrift stores and they were generally useable.

It would be nice to be able to fix some of this up, for myself or to gift to friends but I have no idea how to do anything more than open and close jump rings, and even that can look pretty sloppy. Would anyone be available to help me figure stuff out, or maybe we can get a group of a few people for a class on learning the basics?

One of my fav pieces that I’m interested in is a collar made of rhinestone chains that looked like they were welded together and one of the strands broke away from the others.

#2

Repairing costume jewelry is tricky. There are different alloys of ‘pewter’ (aka pot metal), only some of which can take solder. There are ways to cold join a break, but they’re not always permanent, and often break the pattern.

You’d probably need to get any new rhinestones that are missing. Don’t try to pull them from another piece, the backing just doesn’t transfer.

That collar, sometimes they can be re-fit once you remove the stones, if they’re not glued in. It’s tedious and requires high magnification and some precision tools, though. If we’re at the Space at the same time, I’d be happy to give some tips and triage what can be repaired easily, and what’s going to be more trouble than it’s worth.

~David

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