Making earwires...help please!

[Gemma]

Hi everyone. Hope you all had lovely weekends

Hope someone can help me. I've been making earwires. I cut a length of silver, heat the end to form a ball, shaping etc...
Problem is the ball textures when it cools. I've tried air cooling and dunking it in water with the same results. Any ideas how to stop this?
I've attached a piccy so you can see what I mean...

[Di Sandland]

This is a common problem with sterling silver, Gem, fine silver doesn't pit like that. I don't know if any of the others have 'cures' for sterling tho.

[Ominicci]

Argentium (and Brilliante) is good for balls as it doesn't 'pit' like sterling does.

Some jewellery makers use it to their advantage though and incorporate it into their designs, like Jo from GemHeaven Jewellery HERE

[Ominicci]

Oops for got to say ... apparently the trick is to cool it very slowly by pulling the flame away in slow motion. I've never really got that to work so I use Argentium specifically for ear wires.

[Di Sandland]

Nicci, Gem Heaven's stuff is absolutely stunning! Thanks for the link.

[Gemma]

Wow! Jo's stuff is great!
So the thing I'm doing wrong is using the wrong silver...thanks Nicci and Di. That means I have to go shopping again then...such a shame

[Emerald]

I make my earwires with sterling and i really dont mind if it pits and as Jo does if you oxidise it it looks really good.

[Di Sandland]

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

[Solunar Silver Studio]

Hmmm - in my experience - you pickle the Argentium too. The ball is very often silver but the wire tends to go grey. But then - sometimes it doesn't! Fickle stuff!!
It is also risky to do it with Argentium if you are prone to the shakes as I have had the ball drop off and bounce away if you twitch or jiggle it at all!

[shelliem]

Thanks Di and thanks Gemma for starting this thread