She arrived in time – such a small girl – holding its parts carefully, so that instead of receiving the string/bracelet in small pieces, what I received is what you can see here (still threaded).
We wondered: bracelet or beads, yet we reached no conclusion… Eventually, we called it bracelet because, functionally speaking, (the girl was wearing the bracelet) that’s what it was.
History of the defect / accident
Apparently, these gewgaws are not meant to live more than a couple of weeks maybe. It’s a good thing that those who make them don’t make bridges and airplanes…
Both fastening components yielded almost simultaneously, but the girl caught the end beads and never lost a piece.
Note for those interested: if you get the loose end, fasten it with a clip or even chewing gum, or put it off because otherwise you will have only a half a meter of string and lots and lots of small beads to gather…
Action Plans
At first I tried to reuse the original clamping system, but as I said earlier, the manufacturers weren’t aircraft designers… We looked at how the initial clamping pieces were made, and we concluded that they could not be reused, so I switched to Plan B: hunter/gatherer (mostly gatherer) in the garage.
Required parts and tools
After identifying the necessary parts, i.e. two small pieces of thin copper pipe (from a thermostat), all that was still to be found was the crimping tool. We could fasten with any pliers, but obviously, if we are to live up to our claims, we must be professional and crimping.
The Repair
We assembled clamping pieces (small pieces of pipe), the end beads, then we went back through the thread holding the pieces, and we made sure that they were large enough. Crimping was done carefully, to fasten the “necklace” but not to shear the thread. Crimping pliers have a special profile, which “holds” the pipe, and tights it on all sides.
Final Result
We shook it with a forceps, we turned it all over, we looked under a magnifying glass: everything was OK. If they (the manufacturers) didn’t skimp on materials, the bracelet would have never reached us. The very strong thread is made from a few fibers, twisted and covered with plastic.
Other comments
The conclusion of this little job is that we should specialize in photography of small and very small items (Macro-photography). We might even buy the right camera/lenses… as the pictures from the slide below definitely ask for…
