What makes All Strung Out your choice for pearl restringing?
I restring your pearl necklaces and bracelets with knots in between each pearl. The knots prevent your pearls from rubbing against each other which damages them, and prevents you from chasing them all down if your strand ever happens to break. Having your pearls restrung with knots also helps them to drape more naturally – the small spaces in between each pearl made by the knots give a more fluid movement to your strand. On rare occasions pearls will be strung without knots, usually uniform sized pearls that are very small – the knots actually detract from the beauty of the delicate pearls. If your pearls are larger than 3mm diameter, I will strongly recommend restringing with knots if they aren’t already.
Attention to the details
French wire
When doing a pearl restringing, I like to always use French wire at each end of the strand where the stringing material is threaded through the holes or loops of the clasp. Having the bare thread in constant contact with the metal weakens it over time, making this the weakest point of your strand. French wire is a finely coiled wire that is threaded onto the stringing material, making a “cocoon” around it so there is metal against metal at the clasp join.
Size grading
Another step that I take that sets me apart from many pearl stringers is size grading. Whether you have a few pearls on an Add-A-Pearl necklace or a full-sized strand, I will restring them according to their size, with the smaller pearls at each end working up to the largest in the center. Pearl necklaces and bracelets have slight variations in the size of the pearls used, usually 1/2 mm (6-6.5mm, 7-7.5mm, etc.) This is a very small difference, but when you have a 6mm pearl lying next to a 6.5mm pearl, the difference is visible. Size grading the pearls does take extra time and work, but it produces an even more beautiful strand in the end.