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Industrial chic necklace repair

Happy National Zipper Day!

How did I not know this?! It’s National Zipper Day in the United States, to commemorate the day the design for the zipper was patented in 1913. I should have saved yesterday’s zipper hack post for today!

Instead, I’ll write about another small project, this time to restore a fun necklace I was gifted a few years ago. The original chain was some kind of soft felt material, and it kept breaking with the slightest strain. I tied knots at each break until I realized the cord simply had to be replaced.

The trouble was, I didn’t have any suitable thread for it. So, it sat on my desk for over a month, and I finally decided to put it away yesterday. A few hours later, I was looking at my other half’s hack bicycle mechanic work in the apartment, and the stray piece of used shifter cable on the floor gave me an idea. As did the extra cable stops on the kitchen counter.

I also remembered that I had some springs that I’d saved from retractable ballpoint pens, that could be used to maintain spacing between the larger, central piece and the smaller ones.

With these humble parts, I was able to restore—enhance, even?—the necklace. The exposed cable end had a cable end cap crimped onto it, and it disappears into a cable stop.

It all worked out.

I can wear it around my neck, or across my forehead and over my ears (but not for as long). Who says there’s only one way?

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