Featured Restring Stretch Bracelet

Hi all! I have this great bakelite bracelet that need restringing with elastic. I have Googled but I'm not finding anything about restringing old bakelite bracelets. I want to use appropriate elastic. I also want to make sure I do it so the knotted ends are secure and the elastic is not too tight or too loose.

Does anyone have advice on this, or links to a "how to"? Thanks for any help

 

Are you sure that's Bakelite? Could be 1980s retro.

Debora

 

Sure looks like bakelite from here! That's fabric-covered elastic. Restringing is dead easy. Once you unearth some appropriate elastic that is.

 

We used to make bracelets at sleep away camp if I remember correctly you stretch the elastic cording as you go, to hold it down the end we used the spring underneath the bed of an upper bunk! Not sure if this was the correct way but worked when I was 10!

 

You need what we used to call knicker elastic!

 

The red tests positive, the black not which is typical.

 

Thank you for that information. And apologies for questioning your description. I should have known you'd know.

Debora

 

Sometimes, more than sometimes, the red won't test either. Black never does; you just have to know. Marie's been at it longer than I have. After a while, you can usually eyeball it.

 

No apologies needed Debora! I didn't say in my post I tested them and it was a reasonable question

 

You're very kind.

Debora

 

Whoa whoa whoa, stop the clock. Black Bakelite won’t test positive even though it’s Bakelite? Red sometimes won’t either? I use the baking soda method. Have I decided things weren’t Bakelite that looked like Bakelite originally? That would suck but be good too because I still have pile of black ones I hoped were Bakelite and decided I overspent on after they failed the test. I could redeem one of my few pretty bad buys if so. What’s the skinny?

 

Real bakelite only comes in black and dark brown. Neither responds to chemical tests. The only way I ever heard of getting them to react was to take a dremel to them and either smelling the drill hole or lighting the drilled bits on fire. (not recommended ) The pretty colors are really catalin. Red sometimes responds to baking soda and sometimes, I'm told, to simichrome. But only sometimes. It's one of the catalins and it doesn't always react.