Making earwires...help please!

[mizgeorge]

Jules, that was fine silver, which balls up perfectly, stays lovely and silvery, but is too soft to use for most earwire styles unfortunately. You can get it a bit harder with some twisting and tumbling, but not much - that's why sterling (and its alternatives) were developed.

[Petal]

Ahhhh. That explains it then! Thanks for that. No emoticons this time, it takes too long to choose them!

xx

[Gemma]

Thanks George! Great to see a comparison...
Didn't think my little question would cause so much discussion...thought I was just being dense!

[amazingbabe]

George you are a wealth of info,, Thank you so much,, I buy my earwires mainly because its handy but i do intend in the new year to start making my own findings, What guage wire do you use for your earwires??

[mizgeorge]

I generally use 0.8mm wire Gayle - 0.7 is more comfortable for people with very sensitive ears, but can feel a bit flimsy. 0.9 looks great, but even I find it pretty uncomfortable after a while.

[Ominicci]

1. Cut a piece of wire slightly longer than you want your headpin to be
2. Hold one end of the wire with the tweezers, with the other end of the wire pointing down.
3. Direct the torch flame at the wire end. The bit just beyond the blue cone works best for me.
4. A little ball of silver will form and seem to climb up the wire
5. The longer you keep the torch there, the bigger the ball will be
6. Don't get too ambitious though - cos the ball sometimes falls off if you keep it in the flame too long
7. Quench the pins in water
8. Pickle to remove the black (not necessary for fine silver, not sure about Argentium)

Et voila

I don't use fine silver, but I do find that if you flux the end of the wire (sterling, Argentium or Brilliante) it balls quicker and more spherical.

I have 1.0mm wires in my ears at the moment as I made some corkscrew swirls . I have sensitive ears when it is base metal (don't have many of them any more), but I can't say I am sensitive to different thicknesses...

[Kalorlo]

Heh, my ears are the other way round - as long as there's no nickel they're fine, but when I wear my 0.8mm earrings during the working day for more than about three days in a row, they get really unhappy. I'm used to the really thin commercial silver-plated earwires - the holes just aren't that big!

[mizgeorge]

I can't even get 1mm into mine Nicci! I make my corkscrews from 0.8hh. They're one of those designs that people seem to either love or hate!

[Sunnybank]

I have 1.0mm wires in my ears at the moment as I made some corkscrew swirls

Sorry for the ignorance, what are corkscrew swirls, they sound interesting?

[MuranoSilver]

They're the funky ones that you swirl round a biro/knitting needle and thread into your ear (got any pics George?)
nic x