Heishi: Hand-Cut vs Machine-Cut
Part of the Southwest Buyer's Guide.
Heishi are small disc beads of shell or stone, drilled one by one and ground round by hand. Machine-made imitations are produced in volume; the poor ones give themselves away with large holes, uneven beads and plastic posing as stone.
How it's made
Heishi starts as shell or stone broken into small pieces. Each piece gets its own hole. Then the pieces go onto a wire, and the whole strand is ground against finer and finer abrasives until rough chips become discs that match their neighbors.
That grinding is where the cost lives. Somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of the material is lost to it. Hand work this slow can't keep up with what the market wants, and imported machine-cut heishi fills the gap.
Machine-cut is a method, not a verdict. A machine-cut strand of real shell is still real shell. The trouble sits at the cheap end, where plastic block stands in for stone and nobody says so.
How to tell hand-cut from machine-cut
| Feature | Hand-cut | Machine-cut |
|---|---|---|
| Strand | Even, ground as one strand | Cheap ones uneven, irregular |
| Drill hole | Not oversized | Often large |
| Material | Shell or stone, often stabilized | Plastic block or dyed stone |
| Matrix | Grown in the stone | Can be molded in |
| Feel | Stone weight | Block often denser, heavier |
The word and the tradition
Heishi is the Kewa word for shell. Kewa, or Santo Domingo, Pueblo is the place most tied to these beads, and its makers have long been counted the finest at grinding, drilling and stringing them by hand.
Strictly, then, heishi means shell beads, and older sources hold to that: silver or turquoise beads, they say, are just beads. Today the word covers small handmade disc beads of any natural material, and that is the sense this page uses.
Further reading: The Beauty of Heishi · heishi in our glossary.
Heishi: Common Questions
What is heishi?
Small disc beads of shell or stone. Each bead is drilled on its own, and the strand is ground until the beads become even discs. The word is the Kewa word for shell.
How can you tell hand-cut heishi from machine-cut?
Look at the strand, the holes and the material. A good hand strand runs even from bead to bead. Cheap machine-cut strands tend to run uneven, with oversized holes, and some are plastic block rather than stone.
Is machine-cut heishi fake?
Not by itself. Machine cutting is a method, and a machine-cut strand can be real shell or stone. What to watch for is block sold as stone, which can even carry molded-in matrix.
Why does hand-cut heishi cost more?
It is slow, and most of the material never reaches the strand. Grinding beads into even discs turns 60 to 70 percent of the shell or stone into dust.
Is turquoise heishi often stabilized?
Often, yes. Stabilized turquoise holds together under the drill, which is why many bead makers use it.