Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Cam Lobe Earrings

I was recently given a haircut from a friend (and what a kick-ass haircut it was). Being a professional hairdresser and all, she required payment, but considering the conditions the haircut were given in, I thought it would be cooler to trade her service for something I could make...

After disassembling an old piece of climbing gear called a Spring-loaded camming device (SLCD), or cam, I went about looking for earring hardware on the East side of the Sierra and came up empty handed...until I found myself in the hardware store (duh). Here is the result.

Lobes removed



One finished earring, 3 lobes, 1/4" threaded aluminum spacer, and cam axle



The goods!



My friend Sarah wearing the earring

I used a 1/4" threaded aluminum spacer, which barely fit into the hole in the cam lobe. I had to gently tap it in with a hammer...and thanks to the malleability of both pieces, the threaded hole did not deform, and the cam lobe did not break. I then placed a small (6-32 x 3/4") machine screw into the threaded hole. The appropriate nut holds the earring in place, much like a threaded barbell.

I risked using both a brass flathead screw (which looks really cool) and a stainless philips screw (which looks a little less cool). The brass ended up being too reactive with Sarah's skin and she can only wear the stainless one. Thankfully in Sarah's other earlobe resides a #3 Black Diamond stopper.

3 comments:

  1. where's the awesome haircut, hmm?

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  2. Ah! Well, that one grew out...now I have a new haircut. I will post pictures soon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So crafty, looks way hardcore/cool.
    *Cada

    ReplyDelete