Luthiers sound expensive for the crap stem, but the wife's beloved (and longstanding) stash of buttons may yield troves. Thanks from me, not her.

I have a bunch of these Netherlands 2 1/2 cent coins, mostly dates in the 50's and 60's, not worth much. You'd have to file the thing down to exactly the right size.




It's about the size of a quarter. I also have some 1 cent coins, same design, about the size of a US cent, so the lion design is proportionally smaller.

If that interests you, lemme know, I'll send you either one for the cost of postage.

[MENTION=73614]rhm[/MENTION] thanks for the offer. I'll pass for now. Something a mm or 2 smaller than a USA dime might work.

It's Very Thin .. Gold Leaf can be glued on, and look Great..





...

Decades ago, I used to be a manufacturing manager making thin film recording heads and we plated gold tabs for wire bonding at a later stage. Needless to say, the gold plating bath needed to be cleaned occasionally, and as a hard working manager I now have a small jar of gold waste. Which could be gently hammered onto a small hard disk, i bet. But again too much hand labor for the crap stem.

Depends on how much your labor is worth!

As weighed against how valuable my labor is compared to creating a gold colored dot on the front of the crap Cinelli stem.

How about a wired in flashing LED light?

Since drilling would be involved, perhaps a larger LED could be fitted behind the Cobalto jewel. A Flashing Cobalto Cinelli stem. What a way to accessorize the crap stem in the box. i love it.

Our Lady of Ghisallo medallion. Or similar.

What about the sheet metal disk found on top of champagne corks?
Some of them have interesting designs imprinted on them and the material is thin enough so you can shave it down to the right diameter with a Dremel, if needed

No lathe (yet).

Gugie sez go for the googly eyes.

As an alternate to the lathe, you could use a doming block (https://www.harborfreight.com/25-piec...set-93539.html) to make a metal disk slightly convex, and reduce its diameter at the same size.



You just put the disk in one of the hemispherical holes, put the appropriate punch on it and bop it with a hammer. Pretty easy to make a disk exactly the size you need.

Is that a typo on the block itself? "Dombing"?

harbor freight sources are not all english as a 1st language places .

LOL, if I still had a piece of blue plexi in my scrap bin, I'd make you one for a 6 pack of IPA, but I seem to have tossed my acrylic scrap pieces at some point.

Anyhow, I can tell you how to do it: acquire plastic from acrylic supplier (or repurpose something), cut with hole saw without center bit - slowly, superglue to dowel and chuck into drill press, file and shape as necessary, sand smooth working from ~ 320 up to about 1500 grit wet or dry, wet. Polish with polishing compound.

Dang, Andy. Just Dang.
Look at the new skills and knowledge offered up in this thread.

Anyone got a cloisonne technique - or want to bid a qty 1 on a dime sized object d'arte?

Actually, I'm gonna follow-up on the cork backed coin/medalion thingie. I humbly bow to Ghisallo. Besides, the thin cork insert backing makes the process reversable should screw-ups result in a faulty 1st attempt. BITD, in manufacturing circles, referred to as 'engineering reset allowance'.

Glad we got that taken care of....

That caught my eye too. I've always referred my set as a dapping block, etc.

looking closely at that HF set, the dies don't appear to be all that spherical.

What about a fancy silver or gold button like what is used on a suit or overcoat? You could cut the shank off the back and epoxy the button into the recess.

Well, what do you expect for a Harbor Freight 'dumbing block'? I'm perfectly happy with mine, but then again I don't do very precise work.