By Tom and Kay Benham, Contributing Editors, Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist
We used to make individual sterling silver beads for adorning our jewelry, until one day when we received a new batch of sterling silver casting grains; while pouring them onto a tray to examine them, we were struck by the large percentage of grains that rolled freely and appeared to be
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spherical.
We found it quite easy to separate the spherical grains by panning (i.e., shaking the pan back and forth). The non-round grains stayed where they
were and the round ones rolled to the lowest part of the tray where they were easily scooped up. The percentage of spherical beads seems to vary widely from batch to batch, but we just sort through every batch of sterling silver casting grain we buy and end up with a nice assortment of sterling silver balls. The size of the balls varies
from about .040" to .125" in diameter and can easily be sorted into a systematic series of sizes.
The traditional method for separating materials of various diameters is the sieve which, if purchased, can be expensive. We made our own sieve using a set of pill containers that stack together, which we purchased at a local drugstore. Each pill container has its own cap and also has screw threads on its top and bottom so that multiple units may screwed together to form a long tube.
We drilled a series of holes in the bottom of each container to make a graduated sieve (top container drilled using a .125" drill bit, second a .120" drill bit, and the remainder at .010" increments down to .040"). When the unsorted spherical grains are poured
into the top container and the entire sieve assembly is shaken, the balls fall through the series of graduated holes until they are sorted into their respective sizes. The sieves are opened and the sorted balls are poured into small vials for storage until needed.
This method provides a large assortment of various-sized balls when you need them without the inconvenience and hassle of melting and pickling the metal.