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Some of the vintage, but cheap, charms are lead-based as I found out when struggling to put a split-ring on a guitar-player figure and having his little head pop off from the pressure of my grip! Avoid lead charms; they'll poison pets and small children that can't resist chewing on a charm bracelet. You'll know lead charms because they'll have a soft flexible feel. You may even be able to twist them with your bare hands. The old-style charm bracelet pictured here features a classic travel theme. Starting in the right corner and moving counter-clockwise, we have an ocean-liner, a cameo, the Arc de Triomphe, a moveable Dutch windmill, a gondola, a wheel of Swiss cheese from Switzerland, and the leaning tower of Pisa.
Supplies and Assembly of Old Style Charm Bracelets:
- Vintage chain-link bracelet (look on eBay.com) or length of chain and clasp from jewelry supply store
- Matching metal charms (buy separately on eBay or remove from other vintage bracelets)
- Jump rings or split rings. Your choice: jump rings look dressier and split rings are more secure.
- Round-nose jewelry pliers or split-ring jewelry pliers to pry open those little jump- or split-rings
Use the jump- or split-rings to attach your charms at regular intervals to your chain-link bracelet. You can choose charms that reflect a theme (travel, animals, good-luck charms) or just add things that have special significance to you.
Clasps and Safety-Chains. If you're working with a length of chain rather than a plain or vintage bracelet that already has a clasp, you can attach a clasp with the jump- or split-rings. Remember that split-rings are stronger structurally than jump-rings and the clasp of a bracelet catches a lot of stress.
You could also attach a safety-chain. This is where you take a delicate single-link chain that is thinner than your main charm bracelet and attach each end to each end of your charm bracelet.
It will look like a little splice that lengthens the circle of your original charm bracelet. You want its length to be just long enough to allow you to slip the charm bracelet with its clasp undone on and off over your hand. If your clasp were ever to break, the bracelet should fall slack on your wrist with your safety chain holding it together. It could slide off your hand, but you'll probably notice in time to grab it.
