My Wife Threw Down The Gauntlet, I Took It Up, And My Daughter Is Now Very Happy.

After my family (with my father-in-law visiting) finished dinner (they made pizza, and I made myself sauteed mutton slices Mediterranean style served rare, because it was “scrounge night”), my daughter showed off a pretty white pebble she picked up while walking up the hill with her Grampa back toward home after school.

“Wow, what a pretty white pebble you have there!”, I told Little One.

Little One's rock, brought home from school.

Little One said, “I wonder what it looks like inside.”

“I’ve got my diamond saw. Do you want me to find out?”, I asked her.

Auntie chimed in… “Maybe its got GOLD in it!”

Mama said, “and what if it does?” (Gentle Reader, I do hope you are realizing that Auntie and Mama are staging this entire conversation strictly for Little One’s own entertainment).

Auntie responded with: “Well, we could take the gold to a bank!”

Getting into the spirit of things, I followed with: “More likely, we’d bring the gold to a coin shop where they could weigh the gold and they could give us cash.”

Mama said, “Little One, are you sure you want Daddy to cut this rock? It might just be only more white inside.”

My daughter nodded.

“Okay”, I told them all, “I’ll be in the shed for a little bit while I cut this rock, while there’s still some useful sunlight.” So off I go to the back of our home, bringing a warm pitcher of water with me and my daughter’s pretty white pebble.

It was an extremely hard little pebble, and it took much more time to cut than the galena crystal I tested my Gryphon C bandsaw on after I finished my refurbishment. But it seems that the water and the diamond-coated copper blade was easily able to do its work, taking perhaps a eighth of an inch of kerf out of the rock while splitting it in halves.

Little One's rock after cutting in half.

After I finish the job, cleaned up the equipment, and put it away, I bring the halves back indoors. My daughter was clearly fascinated by my deed and was running her fingers over the semi-polished interiors. Yes, it was indeed a pure and creamy white inside!

Mama smiled up at me. She said, “I have an idea. Maybe Daddy can take a slice of one the pieces in your hands and make a necklace for you. He’d need to drill a hole in the slice and use a jump ring to put it on a necklace. Then you could show the necklace to your class tomorrow along with the rock pieces.”

Even after just only turning 6 a few days ago, my extremely bright daughter (straight A’s so far in first grade) loves to take an idea and run with it. “Or, maybe Daddy can take one of the pieces and carve a heart out of it and put some letters on too.”

Mama said, “Daddy can do that next time”.

Then she threw down the gauntlet. “How about it, Dear?”, she asked me with a smile. “I want to see a finished product, tonight!”

That caught me unprepared. I hemmed and I hawed and I was mostly talking to myself by way of thinking out loud. “Well, I’ve got some chain I’d been saving to make presents for you and others by Christmas, if I use one of those, I’d have to resupply. I have no jump rings but I do have sterling wire and I could jury-rig something. And now I can finally try out my diamond burrs for drilling a hole in rock.”

I scooped up the rock halves from my daughter’s hands, and said, “I think I can do it in a hour.”

My wife replied, surprised, “You think it would take you that long?”

I told her, with a smirk, “Did I ever tell you that I multiply my estimates by a factor of four?” (I learned that trick for deadlines from a fellow engineer who I greatly admire, unfortunately I was born two centuries too early to ever meet him.).

She threw up her hands, exasperated, and exclaimed, “Whatever!”. After hearing that I beat a hasty retreat for the front door.

Fortunately, I have lights in my shed, but the lighting was not the best and the sun was beginning to set. I needed to work fast.

The rock half I worked with was a bit small and difficult to keep straight in the water spray made by the saw, but I made the slice easily enough even if it wasn’t completely straight. I placed the slice in my vise, chucked my narrowest diamond coated point in my Craftsman flex-shaft (one of the few gifts from my ex that I ever decided to keep), wet my slice liberally, and drilled a hole. Then I dried my slice off with paper towel and wrapped a few inches of fine sterling wire into a coil through the hole. I wasn’t prepared to do jewelry soldering just yet but I remembered having some silver solder left over from my electronics, so I fired up my trusty Radio Shack butane soldering iron to join the wires of the coil into a sturdy ring. I cut the excess wire and sandpapered the cut to make the jump ring safer to handle.

Sliced rock, shown with a jury-rigged jump ring on a plated silver chain.

To finish the job, I slipped the fake jump ring through a silver-plated nickel chain that I bought for thirty-five cents (USD $0.35), and voila!, my very first honest-to-god handicrafted jewelry!

My very first handicrafted work!

I came back in, a little less than an hour later, after cleaning up and closing again. I had the new necklace dangling from my hand. My wife leaned up out of her chair to kiss me as I handed her the necklace. She, in turn, gave it to Little One, who seemed extremely proud to be wearing what Daddy just made.

Little One proudly showing off her new pendant!

I grinned broadly as I reported to my family: “That’ll be fourteen-ninety-nine (USD $14.99)”.

Mama said, “But Little One supplied the rock, all you provided was the labor!”.

“Okay, okay…. twelve-ninety-nine (USD $12.99) then”, I conceded. I continued, sardonically, “but consider what the stores are charging for tourist junk like that.”

Mama said, “I think ten (USD $10), because the rock isn’t polished.”

“But I’m not paying the money for it!”, Little One protested.

“No, but your mother is, and then she’s giving it to you”, I explained to my daughter. I then said, “And when I show off my favorite supply stores to Grampa tomorrow morning, I’m going to spend that ten dollars to resupply the chain, and maybe get some other things”.

“Where’s the money?”, my daughter asked her mother.

Mama replied, “Daddy will use the credit card, because he just got a little extra allowance to spend.”.

And so that’s the story behind my very first piece of jewelry I made for my family that involved actual tools. I finally met my wife’s challenge for a “finished product”! I made my daughter very happy (she gave me a huge hug at bedtime)! And with a few pennies of silver wire and solder, and a few dimes for a plated chain, I made a handsome profit for less than an hour’s time!

Cheers, and thank you all for your patience in reading!

Aulë