and mountain man style jewelry and accessories.
Tools needed:
A fine toothed saw, a coping saw will work just fine.
A drill, an electric drill is ideal but an old fashioned hand drill
will work.
Drill bits, Depending on what you plan to string the beads on,
1/16" to 1/8" are the best sizes.
A belt sander, This will make rounding the ends of the beads go
faster but if you don't have one, you can use a variety of sand
papers and a bit of patience.
A power buffer, If you want to polish the beads to a high shine one
of these is ideal but if you don't have one you can use fine steel
wool.
A sturdy table vise, You will need on to hold the antler while
cutting and drilling the beads. If need be you can clamp the antler
to a sturdy table top with C clamps but make sure the antler is
locked down before you start working.
The first step is to clamp your antler into your vise, it is
advisable to pad the vise with some soft non-marring material like
a piece of suede or rubber inserts. You will want to decide how
long the beads will be before you begin so you can maintain a
consistent size. Anywhere from 1/2" to no more than 1-1/2" in
length should be about right for most beads. You may want to
use a Sharpie to mark off your beads so you have a visual
reference.
After you have cut as many beads as you want you will now be ready
to drill them for stringing. With antler beads you have quite a few
options for how to string them. Most commonly you will probably
want a hole drilled through the longest part of the bead but you
can also drill a hole through one end if you want the bead to
dangle. Just take you time and decide what you want to do with
them. Pad your vise as you did for cutting the beads to avoid
marring the surface of the antler and mount your bead so it is at
a comfortable angle for drilling. Try to drill your holes as close
to the center as possible.
An inch and a half is about as long as you will want to make a dangling bead.
A smaller dangling bead about 3/4" long.
Now that you have drilled your beads you will want to sand the ends
where you cut them and the ends will likely be rough and in many
cases have sharp points that need to be removed for both looks and
the comfort of the person wearing the beads. This is where that
belt sander and sand paper will come in handy. Depending on your
personal tastes you can simply round the edges or you can round the
entire end of the bead.
Note the ends of this bead are flat with just the edges rounded
The ends of this bead are rounded off
Finally we get to the polishing, if you are using a power buffer I
would recommend using a soft loose cotton buffing wheel with Brown
Tripoli as your buffing compound as it is well suited for natural
materials like antler and wood. You won't need to use much pressure
on the antler but try to maintain a solid grip on the beads to
avoid the buff snatching the beads out of your fingers. The ends of
the beads will be where you will want to focus most of your
attention since you will want to maintain the antlers natural
appearance as much as possible. depending on want kind of look
you are going for you can either give them a light buffing to give
them a gentle shine or can polish them to a high glossy finish.
If you don't have a power buffer you can use fine steel wool to
buff the beads with as well. It will take a little longer but you
can achieve a very fine polish with steel wool. One thing you may
need to look for when using steel wool, some brands of steel wool
use a silicon coating to prevent the steel wool from rusting, this
will sometimes make what you are working on look a lot shiner that
it really is so you will need to wipe the beads with a soft cloth
to remove the silicon residue. You'll know when it has silicon on
it, you're fingers will get a light oily film on them.
Now you are ready to string them!
