So the Hercules, or Herakles, Knot is a motif seen throughout Greco-Roman jewelry and art. It’s another one of those things that spans from the Roman Republic all the way through the Empire. I love things like that. I’ve made two knots that are going to become earrings like these from The Louvre:
But there are quite a few examples of extant necklaces that use the same motif. Once my new stock of wire comes in, I plan to make two versions with two different size knots. These earring charms are made with 19 gauge fine silver.
Start with two pieces of wire 2″ in length (for knots that finish just over 1″ long).
Form each of those into a rough circle/ oval so that the two ends meet cleanly.
Solder or fuse each ring shut. Make sure the joint is solid before moving on.
Start forming each ring into a rounded, sort of bowling pin shape. You want the fat end to be fatter, proportionally, than a bowling pin. I used the stepped bail forming pliers to do this, using several of the steps to help.
You should end up with two mostly identical shapes.
Next, you want to very gently curve each piece around the middle, so that if they’re opposing one another, they’re curved in opposite directions. This curve allows you to slot the two pieces together and get that woven look, and they’ll be flattened out in the next step.
The photo above shows how gently you can curve the pieces and all make them work together. Don’t worry too much about the alignment now, you’ll tweak it in the next step. Just get them interwoven.
Next, gently straighten out the pieces as much as possible, and tweak your shape and alignment. I very gently tapped mine with a hide mallet, then flipped it over and tapped the other side.
You can see how flat it got.
The next step is to solder. Solder at the four points where the skinny ends overlap and underlap the fastest ends. That locks the knot together.
This knot ended up right around 1-1/8″ long. It’s a little on the skinny side, though. When I make the necklaces, I plan to round the fat end a bit more, exaggerating the shape. These aren’t bad, though, and I’m happy with them!
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