Coal Jewelry Help & Ideas

[GirlZilla78]

Hi all...
I come from a family of coal-miners and recently my uncle, the big-brother patriarch of the family passed away unexpectedly.   I've gotten a few lumps of the last coal that came out of his mine before his death and would like to make some jewelry for his wife & daughters & perhaps keychains for his brothers and nephews.  I'm thinking a resin casting may be best for making pendants for these things, but I'm a total noob & not sure how that would work out. Any ideas or suggestions from you crafty experts out there?
Thanks so much...

[Onyxnox]

I did something like this for our grandmother who passed last year, we took her wedding ring, placed it in a victorian style pendant bezel, and cast it in resin, and placed it on her ash casket before burial.

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=384320.0

It was a single small piece, so I used a one part UV cure resin, but that is pricier than a 2 part resin.

You could take a premade bezel, place some kind of background in it (perhaps his name, and dates printed on them, his picture, or a bit from his obituary or any writings from the funeral), lay the coal on top, and then pour the resin in.  If you have never worked with resin before, there is a thread devoted to just resin here with a lot of good information in it, and I advise practicing mixing and casting with it first, before working on the intended projects.  If you do use any paper products (pictures, notes, etc), you will need to treat them with something, like a glaze, to protect the paper, otherwise when resin comes in contact with paper, it absorbs the resin and becomes translucent.

Here is the resin thread

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=10667.0

[GirlZilla78]

Thanks for the reply.  I was hoping resin would be the way to go, but from what I've read coal is kind of a funky material and I wasn't sure if I'd get a bunch of replies warning me that resin & coal don't play well together.
Love the box you did....very nice.   

[Blacksmith]

Well allow me to confirm your worries, coal is indeed a funky substance to work with!
Most flavors of coal will take resins fine, the thing is that you may want to apply something to increase the strength of the coal (since most of the coals I've dealt with are kinda brittle). Honestly it really depends on how much you want to form the material and what final shape you're after.

[GirlZilla78]

Thanks Blacksmith...  I'm literally working with the last batch that came from the mine....couple of lumps maybe 2x1" in size, so my supply is a bit limited.  I'd like to make as many pendants (I saw some nice 2mm deep bezels on etsy) as possible,  so I figured I'd just break the lumps into little shards and have them suspended in the resin in the bezels.  Think that would work? I've got plenty of other not-so-meaningful coal to test with, so I can do some trial and error, but didnt want to embark on a mission that was doomed for failure.

FWIW, my hubby is a tattoo artist and this weekend he's going to do a memorial piece for my uncle on me....we're going to grind/powder up a bit of the coal to put in the black ink he uses in the piece. 

[Onyxnox]

It never hurts to do a trial run - I wonder if it is like porous substances, and needs to be dipped in something first before being embedded in the resin, like a clear coat.

[Blacksmith]

If that is the case do some testing on your practice pieces, try a couple of different cutting methods. You're likely to have the best luck using an abrasive (beware coal dust! use proper PPE!), wet cutting is probably your best bet for getting a nice clean cut if it's a harder Anthracite flavor, if it's a softer bituminous coal then you can probably get away with a hand saw for your initial cuts (cast iron blade for a rip-saw comes to mind, should do the job nicely).