keeping going and keep us posted..
DIY templates for RHINESTONES
Here we go. (brain stall) Well my first failure was for a cross and I started out with three sheets of plastic from wallyworld craft center. I use spray glue on the first two and stuck them together. Then I laid out the "dots" and drilled through the plastic sheets.I used a 9/64 bit but I think a 5/32 would have been better. (just thinking out loud) This was to be used for the 3mm stones. I then sprayed glue on the thrid sheet of plastic and then stuck it to the back of the ones I drilled the holes in. Then I tried shaking it with a bunch of rhinestones and it didn't work like I expected it to. I think the biggest problem I had was watching the shake and bake video and was expecting them to fall in place without even having to touch them more than a very light brushing off of the extra stones. When I wasn't thrilled with the performance of the thing, I used my exacto and made straight cuts out of all the little dots and tried to just get the stones to line up which was an even worse failure than the drilled individual holes. Well, here the pics (if I can get them up) of my first dailure but I learned a few things this time.
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I have a couple of the drilled hole style templates and I am going to tell you that the shake and fill method is a little more work than that. I love my templates, they have saved me endless hours of tedious hand setting, but I still have to turn all stones up and place each one quickly by hand. I tried using a brush but find my index finger sets every stone the most efficiently. I set a 58 stone design in about a minute if I don't get distracted
Thats what I finaly figured out. The people trying to sell the machines and/or templates for big bucks want it to look easier than it probably is in real life. I wonder how many times the one I watched took video till he got it just right? I know the next time I can make good enough to turn a 4 1/2 hour butterfly into a 1/2 shirt with same butterfly and make money while selling at an affordable price. I just need to impress the idea that a shirt with over 500 rhinestones is more a piece of wearable jewelry than just a fancy T-shirt and should be treated so.I have a couple of the drilled hole style templates and I am going to tell you that the shake and fill method is a little more work than that. I love my templates, they have saved me endless hours of tedious hand setting, but I still have to turn all stones up and place each one quickly by hand. I tried using a brush but find my index finger sets every stone the most efficiently. I set a 58 stone design in about a minute if I don't get distracted
Can failure be called success. (ask george bush) Yes if you learn something. Well I learned something. The drill sucks for doing this. a drill press may be better but I think it will still leave bits of plastic around the edges making the template difficult to use. BUT, I think I have figured out a way to resolve that problem. There are tools for "punching" holes in gasket material. They leave a nice,clean cut hole and are a lot easier to keep from drifting off the mark when you make holes. Just set it where you want a hole and tap (hit it pretty good and solid) it and you have a new hole exactly where you put the punch. Gotta wait to get new tools but will get them (punches) asap and do it again, hopefully with better results. Also, the place mats are gonna work out to make the templates with I think.
Right now, I use a system where I find a picture with few colors that are easily hand traceable and draw lines kinda parallel with the color lines and make my rhinestones line up on those hand drawn tracings. It sometimes takes a good eraser to make it look like I want (notice I didn't say " look good" as that is all in the eye of the beholder) but once I get the template thing down, it should be worth it. That being said, software using a scanned picture or uploaded from a camera would make things so much easier. I could just go into corel and do a trace of the parts of the picture and use that for your/whoevers software to turn into a drawing suitable for making a template out of. Would/will be very cool to see/have that.
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