Flatware Jewelry

Step 1: Flatware Jewelry

It's really simple to make some fairly nifty jewelry out of what you've already got sitting around. For this bracelet I chose a stainless fork with some long tines and a bit of character, and then gave it a bit more. I like stainless steel because it's durable and polishes well. You can make it a bit easier to manipulate by annealing it, but I decided not to since I don't have the setup to temper it back up again. You just need to be a bit more stubborn than your materials and a bit smarter than your tools, and it should work fine ;)

Tools:

• hammer
• vise
• pliers
• drill
• Dremel tool with:
  • fine sanding disk
  • small dia high speed cutting bur
  • polishing wheel

Step 2: get amongst it

Begin by flattening out your chosen fork with a hammer. Next, pull the middle two tines up to make it easier to cross the outside tines behind them. Do one outside tine and then roll the tip around before crossing the other side over and rolling it. When finished they should form a heart shape, you can tweak them in the vise a little to bring them closer together. 

Next, we want to bend the inside tines outwards similarly to how we bent the outside ones inwards. Curve them around the outside of the first two, and then put a little outward scroll in the tip of each one for good measure. Now congratulate yourself, the worst is over!

Step 3: finish it up

I thought the junction between the tines and the handle of the fork was a little plain, and decided to put another heart there. Draw a horizontal line, centerpunch a couple spots and drill them out so that the holes just touch. Use the high speed bur in your Dremel to flush out the bottom of the heart. 

The last step in the formation is to shape it into a bracelet. I used a vaguely arm shaped branch from the firewood stack and bent the fork around it by hand, but a few of the thicker sections needed a good whack from the hammer.

And lastly: polish it up! I made up a couple sanding wheels for the Dremel out of different grades of wet/dry paper with duct tape on the back for support to take the tool nicks out of the tines, then it was on to the polishing wheel. 

Just to show you a different design, the last photo is a commission I did for a friend recently out of 2 forks