How Do We Craft Round Amber Beads?
How do we craft round amber beads?
Amber is a unique gemstone whose magic creates a bridge between nature and man. How does a rough amber stone transform into elegant, timeless bead-shaped jewellery? Open the gate to a world where the craftsmanship combines with the deep symbolism of jewellery.
The symbolism of amber beads
Symbols and talismans are an important part of our lives. They are all around us, seen by anyone who is open to them. Even round amber beads are such small talismans that remind us of the beauty and fragility of human existence, but at the same time they symbolise the power of nature. They preserve the power of the sun and the history of our planet for over millions of years. Round shape represents perfection, wholeness and fulfilment. Amber as a gemstone radiates peace, warmth and harmony. By wearing amber jewellery in the shape of round beads, we can connect with this archaic material that opens the door to many cultures and their belief in the power of amber.
How to craft round beads
Let's take a look at how rough amber stones are turned into perfect round jewels.
- As the first step we have to select suitable rough amber stones, because we can not make a round bead out of every piece. Stones must have sufficient thickness and ideally they have to be as round as possible to minimise the loss of material. The more irregular the shape, the more of it will be cut off. And amber is not a cheap material...
2. Selected stones of raw amber are cut into regular cubes.
These first two steps are the most challenging. Both on patience and time, but mostly it is about the ability to select the right stones suitable for the beads.
3. The next step is to grind off the edges of the cubes. The larger ones are grind by hand, the smaller ones, usually 9 mm or less in diameter, are tumbled. Some factories, especially those that focus on small beads and use smaller fractions of raw amber, tumble the amber straight away. In this case, however, there is a greater loss of material.
4. Next comes the ball shaping on a special lathe, we call it a ball sizing machine. Here, we shape beads one after another.
5. Now when we have a nice round shape, we can start polishing. This is a long process that consists of several steps. It will take another day or two to get a nice shiny round bead. Fortunately, this stage is already done in the polishing machines, so we just check that everything is going smoothly. After finishing the main polishing process, we polish the larger beads by hand to get the perfect shine.
6. My favourite part of the whole process is sorting the beads by size, quality and colour. I carefully check every single bead for cracks or impurities.
7. Once we have the beads sorted, the pinhole drill comes into play. This is where it sometimes happens that if there is a hidden crack in the bead, it will crack. Once the holes are drilled, we begin to assemble.
8. In order to assemble ball bracelets or necklaces of a uniform colour, we have to choose from a really large amount of balls of the same size and quality. Especially with large beads, this is quite a challenge, because the larger the amber, the more unique its hue and pattern tends to be. It is harder to find large beads with a similar pattern and colour.
Sometimes customers want a bracelet made of large beads or barrels of the same colour and quality. If they have high standards for a uniform bracelet appearance, there is no choice but to cut one large stone into cubes and grind it into the exact number of beads or rollers needed. However, the price of such a bracelet is much higher than if the bracelet was assembled from beads made of separate amber stones. There is also a high risk of cracks or inclusions hiding inside the large stone. In this case, it may happen that the stone will not be enough for the entire bracelet. Sometimes it's really a lottery.
Amber beads are not only made into bracelets. From earrings, rings to pendants and necklaces, you can make beautiful sets out of them.
You may have noticed that I've mentioned the quality of the beads a few times. In some of the next articles, we will show you how to check the quality of amber and how to distinguish cracks from the pattern of the amber stone.