Of Rocks and Life Lessons...<Jewelcraft, anyone?>

An-D

So, I'll start this with a story. I'm finishing up my semester here at WCU and my Politics of Developing Nations teacher did something rather unexpected during project presentations on Tuesday. He said 'Okay, time for a 2-minute break. I'll be right back' and he left the room.

He came back with a bag of rocks wrapped in a paper towel.

Presentations continue and finish, class gets to end like 30 minutes early. Before he dismisses everyone, he says "If anyone of you want a rock, come reach into the bag and get one."

Needless to say, I'm not one to pass up free rocks, so I'm part of the 1/3 of the class that went for the rocks. I took one out, it looks worthless and out of curiousity, I asked him of the significance. He told me to take my rock and leave...rather abruptly, which wasn't like the guy - he's pretty nice. So I shrugged, pocketed it and left.

I spend a lot of time thinking and looking at the rock.

Thursday comes around, and he starts class off by explaining the significance of the rocks. They were uncut rubies and/or sapphires. Along with the stones he eloquently (though I don't remember exactly how he said it) added two important life lessons: (1) To never be afraid to take things that are offered to you and (2) Never accept things at face value - even a worthless-looking stone can prove to have some value/point.


So, now I have this dime-sized, awkward shaped rock that I want to make into some kind of necklace. My professor explained that they should all be large enough to get cut by a jeweler, but I want to keep mine uncut and raw looking...to insure that the life lessons it contains remain intact.

Does anyone know how I could go about making a natural-ish (rope/hemp) necklace out of this little stone?


Below are some pictures:

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a74/royalpred/StudyDay12-5-2007037.jpg
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a74/royalpred/StudyDay12-5-2007036.jpg
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a74/royalpred/StudyDay12-5-2007035.jpg
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a74/royalpred/StudyDay12-5-2007034.jpg


I don't have any experience in this type of thing...so any help would be awesome! Thank you!

Kate of Lokys

Have you considered just getting one side of the rock ground smooth and polished? If you did that, you could wear it rough side out, then if anyone asked you about it, you could tell them the story, then flip it over so they could gaze in awe at the gleaming gem revealed on the other side. Or, for special occasions, you could wear it shiny side out.

Either way, if you want to wear it on a necklace of any sort, you'll want to wrap wire around it to hold the stone in place, and to create a loop you can attach it to a necklace with. There's a really basic tutorial here, but you can get more creative than that. The type of wire you use depends mostly on your preference. Any half-decent arts-and-crafts store (like Michael's) should have simple silver jewellery wire, you don't need to get into half-soft gold or anything.

Once you have it wire-wrapped, you can either just wear it on a leather (or silk, or cotton) cord, or you can make a necklace for it. Hemp is really pretty easy stuff to learn how to make. There are plenty of tutorials online, but you'd probably be better off just hitting a Wal-Mart, picking up a $5 pattern book and a big roll of hemp, and practicing until you're confident in your ability to tie a whole shitton of tiny little knots very accurately. For something that small and delicate, though, I'd recommend a smaller cord over a hemp necklace, because hemp tends to get pretty bulky, and you don't want to overshadow the centerpiece. Or at least use a really fine gauge of hemp.

CycloneRanger

You need to be certain it is what you think it is before you take any action. Measure its density; if you find it is around 4 grams per cubic centimeter then it is probably corundum (i.e. sapphire or ruby). If it is closer to 2.6 grams per cubic centimeter, then it's just quartz. There are other possibilities, of course, but those are the two I'd suspect. A hardness test or streak test wouldn't hurt either, although they are probably more difficult to conduct in your position.

There's a fair chance your professor is trying to do something snooty and try to teach you a lesson about being less credulous and/or learning that there's no such thing as a free lunch.