How are these bracelets made?

Question

http://www.shopstyle.com/browse/bracelets/Mark-Davis#

These are bakelite bangles with embedded stones. How are all the different translucent colors, marble colors, and opaque colors made? How are the stones embedded? Is bakelite simple lucite? Do you need to make a mold? Is a dremel used to insert the stones?

Answer 1

First things first! Buy one!  Buy a cheap one and take it apart!  Another way is to go to a craft store a really good one and get a book.  I would start with the bracelet first and get a cheap plastic one. Learn the process of setting inexpensive glass stones in it first.  Learn to use the dremel or drill.  But a book would be the best or the Internet because you would need to make sure your set up is right so you can work properly.

Answer 2

Bakelite isn't the same as lucite though some of those completely clear ones do look like cast acrylic.  

You can make very similar bracelets though with polymer clay (which is almost the same thing as Bakelite).  Polymer clays come in all kinds of colors including "Translucent" (which can be made almost transparent when it's thin), and all kinds of marbled or more structured patterns can be made in it using various techniques.

Bracelets like this could be made "freestanding" by using a strong brand of polymer clay, but more often polymer clay "cuff" bracelets are made over an armature of some kind.  

You can read all about making cuff bracelets with polymer clay, get lessons, and links to various examples, on this page at my polymer clay encyclopedia if you're interested in checking them out:

http://glassattic.com/polymer/jewelry.ht...

(...under the Bracelets category, click on "Cuffs" and also on "Forms"...)

For the techniques on marbling polymer clay, mixing colors, using translucents, and giving polymer clay a high gloss finish, go to the page above or go to the Table of Contents page for the wholesite, then click on these page names in the alphabetical navigation bar on the left:

Color > Marbling

Translucents

Finishes

Sanding... Buffing

For "embedding" stones and other things into polymer clay, the ones which can tolerate the low heat used to cure polymer clay (230-275 F usually) can be embedded in the raw clay then baked with it (e.g. glass stones, real crystals, metal or glass beads, etc.).

Plastic "stones" and "rhinestones" can sometimes be done the same way, or instead they can be impressed in the raw clay and removed, and be glued back into the impressions after the clay is baked (polymer clays don't shrink or change shape when cured).

Check out these pages for more on that:

Onlays >  scroll down a few paragraphs to "Baking and Onlays"

Jewelry > Misc > then scroll down to "Renaissance, etc"

Mosaics, Inlays > Inlays

HTH,

Diane B.