Hong Kong Heist [AHS book 2]

Extra: The Needle

So, since I want to be as close to reality as possible with this series, I experimented with the production of the hair needle to come up with a technique that would really work. I started this way before I published the story, but only now I put together all the parts and finished my own hair needle. So, for those who're interested in the forgery part, here is how it works:

Shopping list: 100g of tin, gold leaf + gold leaf glue, gypsum, metal glue, plastic diamonds for kids, pearly nail polish, metal gold thread, melting pot, mill-cutter

And here we go. Let the fun begin!

Step 1: Gypsum Form

I simply filled a cardboard box with gypsum, let it dry out, and drew the form I wanted the needle to have onto it. Then I cut out the negative 3D-shape.

Step 2: Melt The Tin

For melting the tin, you need nothing more than a small melting pot, 100g of tin, and a standard stove. Put the tin in the pot, melt it, pour it into the form. Sounds easy, actually isn't that easy. It took me about ten times of re-melting the needle until I figured how to get it into the whole gypsum form without left-out spaces. And it came out like this:

Step 3: Shaping

You might have seen the little overflow on the head of the needle and the eyelets on the bottom are yet to be drilled, so get out your mill-cutter and start refining the shape. My dad actually helped me with that because I had no idea how to handle a mill-cutter. To put on the gold leaf it seemed smart to me to roughen up the surface, so after the shaping was done, I changed the tool on the mill-cutter to a wire brush and gave it another polish. In the end, it looked like this:

Step 4: Gilding

Get out some gloves because you don't want that glue on your hands. Then find a soft brush and cover the needle in the milky glue. I did the back and the front separately, but if you're a pro in gilding, just go for it however you like. The glue needs to dry for about 20 minutes before you can get out the gold leaf and place it on top. It's really tricky, and I wasted much gold leaf for this, but it's super satisfying when you take a cotton pad in the end and rub off the surplus gold.

Step 5: Diamonds

I knew which diamonds I wanted to use, so I planned my design around them with holes where I would put them, so I just had to glue them in with metal glue (That's really nothing special. You can get in anywhere.)

Step 6: Pearls

Now comes the time-consuming part.

As you can see in the picture, I used those little black pearls as body for my nail polish pearls. And then I drew the pearls like ones draws candles: Dipping them in the polish, letting them dry (cold water bath helps), dipping, drying, dipping, drying, and so on... Every pearl took me about half an hour up to an hour, so be patient. Had I not been this impatient, my pearls would look much better. Good things need time!

Step 7: Connecting

Last, the pearls need to be connected to the body. I was lazy and did it with metal gold thread. I'm sure you can find a prettier way. But this is the result:

It's way too heavy to use it as a hair needle, but it looks like a paper knife, so I'll use it for that.

Have fun producing you own!