It has been a long time since I've seen a mobius strip; I know how to make one, but it seems a bit silly for me to make one just to resolve this. I gather that it's natural for a flexible mobius strip to curl so as to cross itself and make two loops "hanging" in the same general direction; but when I trace that with my finger in the air, I don't get a mobius--I still have the problem that at some point the band needs to twist so as to have the "inside" become the "outside". Also, if it goes around twice then it needs either two hinges or two clasps.
The watch clasp you describe seems rather complex to me; I don't think they had them when I was first wearing a watch. My concept is simpler, a sort of plug and socket arrangement in which the plug has two rounded prongs spring-loaded against the inside, and when it is inserted into the socket the prongs squeeze toward each other. Depressed to the correct distance, they find two slots in the side of the socket and spring out into these, securing the latch. To remove this, you apply pressure to the prongs so they are pushed flush to the slots, and then the plug slides out of the socket easily. The plug is flat, and so the socket is also flat. I've seen this on numerous bracelets and a few necklaces over the years.
Her stone would be green. She will probably favor green and red-brown, as she has green eyes and auburn hair. I certainly don't mind if yours is green, too; as we know, emeralds are readily available, and indeed you have a few of your own tucked away somewhere, I think.
O.K., I gave up and made a mobius strip, and I see the way it crosses and becomes an infinity symbol--but there is still a half twist in one side, which means you haven't resolved the problem. (Go ahead--make one and see what it looks like if you pass something like a straw or pen or something through it--one side lies flat, but the other side still has the single twist in it.) So you're stuck with putting the twist somewhere, and rather than make it an uncomfortable hidden flaw it makes more sense to make it prominent and use it as the setting. When I do it with paper, the twist tends to spread; but if it were metal you could tighten it and arrange it such that it comes right up to the setting flat against the wrist, rises slightly, twists sharply such that there is a point at which the flat is perfectly perpendicular to the wrist on all planes, and continues beyond that to be flat but inverted to continue to the clasp. This gives you a small area characterized by the band twisting sharply from 0 to 45 to 90 degrees and beyond to 135 and then 180 degrees. My three suggestions were:
- place the stones on the 45 degree slopes as it rises toward the perpendicular;
- place the stones exactly at the perpendicular, on opposite sides of the center;
- drill the band at the perpendicular and pass a single stone through it, so it appears as two stones when looked at from above but as one when viewed from the side.
--M. J. Young
