Where do you buy your stuff?

David65

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Joined
Mar 12, 2013
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3
Hi everyone

(thanks to those who have already commented on the original post, I've now made some changes to clarify what I'm asking)

I am a student and am currently conducting my masters around a material that has been developed within my university.
The goal of my research is to find an application for this material and the most appealing application that I have found so far is in the possibility of using it to form pearl nuclei.

I am aware that this has been done before (I have come across things such as Bironite and mention of people using plastics, glasses and ceramics) however the impression that I am getting from these
is that they do not quite compare to nuclei formed from shell... (I would love to know your thoughts on this, especially if you own/run a pearl farm).

The initial reseach I have done on the subject also suggests that larger nuclei are more expensive due to the need to use thicker shell when shaping them and so are not used as frequently as people may like? (please pull me up on this if im off here).
This is quite exciting to me as the material I'm working with has the potential to meet this need.

I've also noted that properties such as density and co-efficent of expansion are important following answers to another post I made earlier, again I find this to be positive as this material has very similar properties to natural nacre in both these respects.
Am I missing anything? are there any other important properties that a pearl nuclei may require that I could be over looking?

One last thing that Im having trouble with is in tracking down where people are currently purchasing the pearl nuclei they use? I have come across the website alibaba.com however I suspect that this is not where the majority of pearl farmers get their nuclei.

I would be really interested in what people think about the possibility of using a material such as this as a pearl nuclei but equally so if you have any info that you think might be relevant in any way I would love to hear it.
 
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HI
You can start with alibaba, if you want nuclei to paint over with nacre colors. If you want to start up a pearl farm, you would not begin with nuclei, so I would enjoy reading your story about this interest in making pearls.
 
Check out the history of the mississippi River pearls, or Tennessee fresnwater pearls , they used to supply material to pearl farms overseas. See also the forum section on books, many of those have the history of pearl farming with descriptions of the various types of nucleus and why some failed, etc.
 
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Sorry, I just saw this and sent David65 a private messege.
 
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