Making rings out of vintage hat pins

Hi, Help needed! I am *relatively* proficient at silver work, and have an understanding of how it will behave under heat etc... However I have no experience of gold and am hoping someone on here can help me.

I have decided to make two delicate rings out of the below vintage gold hat pins I found:

Attachment 7918

Attachment 7919

I want to use the pin as the ring shank. I need advise at t how to remove the decoration from the top- would you advise I saw these off and file, or heat and seperate the solder?

Is there a specific difference between gold and silver that I need to be aware of whilst working with this metal?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Ellie

Hello Ellie, these hat pins usually have hard red gold pins, so that they do not bend in use, in the old days we used to be able to buy what was sold as P wire which was a hard 9ct. gold alloy made especially for brooch and other pins. Not great for making ring shanks though. Your hat pins have the pin wire fitted into a tube on the back of the decoration piece, the first thing I would check is to see if the pins are threaded into this tube, some makers used to thread the pin wires to keep them hard as soldering could make them weaker at the solder point. If they are not threaded, I would play a tiny flame on the tube fitting to see if they are glued or soft soldered in place. If they do not show any movement after this they are probably hard soldered, if so, then I would cut them apart with a piercing saw and discard the old soldered piece into the scrap.

James

Hi James, thanks for your advice! I've had a look and the pins are both look like they are threaded into a tube mount at the reverse. I will see what happens with heat as you suggested. Can you advise why the pins won't make good ring shanks? Am I best to use a 1mm wire to form the shank and solder onto that?

[QUOTE=Unknownlegend;80160]Hi James, thanks for your advice! I've had a look and the pins are both look like they are threaded into a tube mount at the reverse. I will see what happens with heat as you suggested. Can you advise why the pins won't make good ring shanks? Am I best to use a 1mm wire to form the shank and solder onto that?[/QUOTE

Some old pins were made of an alloy that didn't anneal very well and they would crack when bent too much. There is no reason why your pins are an alloy like this, some old 9ct P gold wires will soften OK if quenched after annealing.

Good luck
James