I enjoy making my own silver head pins by melting a ball of metal at the end of a piece of wire. It’s fairly easy to do, and enables you to always have the length you need in the gauge you need for a project.
I use a slightly different technique depending on which type of silver I’m using – sterling, fine, or Argentium. Whichever metal you use, you will need a torch. I use a propane torch, but butane torches also work, although for thicker wire it can be hard to get the flame of the butane torch big/hot enough. Other options are acetylene/oxygen and oxygen/propane, but butane and propane torches are cheap & available at the hardware store.
Using fine silver is the easiest, because you don’t need flux or pickle, just a torch and some tweezers to hold the wire. A heat-resistant surface to let your headpins cool is desirable, and always be safe and use proper ventilation and eye protection when using a torch. Cut a piece of wire slightly longer than you want your headpin to be – maybe 1/2 inch longer. Hold one end of the wire with the tweezers, with the other end of the wire pointing down. Point the torch flame at the end of the wire that is away from your tweezers, and watch a little ball of metal appear! The longer you keep the torch there, the bigger the ball will be – but if it gets too big, it might fall off, so be careful.
I like to use Argentium silver for making headpins. With Argentium, I use basically the same process, except I used the tiniest little bit of flux on the wire end where I’m making the ball. If you use too much flux, you’ll have flux residue, which has to be removed, but if you use just enough, you’ll end up with a nice looking head pin that doesn’t require clean-up at all. If the wire above the ball gets slightly discolored, quickly passing the flame over the discolored part will usually turn the wire silver again.
With regular sterling silver, there is always some clean-up involved, unless you are going for the oxidized (black metal) look. I don’t bother with flux, and start by following the same process as for fine silver. You end up with a head pin that has a very blackened end. This can be cleaned up by soaking in pickle, or by using an abrasive to polish off the oxidation. I like to use a piece of a green kitchen scrubber sponge to polish off most of the oxidation, leaving a slightly rough look. If I want my headpins to be perfectly shiny, I don’t usually use sterling, since it’s easier to get nice shiny head pins with fine silver or Argentium, but if you want clean and shiny sterling head pins, use pickle to remove oxidation, and then toss the finished head pins in a tumbler with stainless steel shot and water for a few minutes.
You can also make head pins by bending the end of a piece of wire into a nice looking shape, such as a spiral. All you need for this method are some pliers and a little practice bending the wire into the shape you want without marking it. When I make head pins this way, I like to lightly hammer the shape I’ve made to harden the wire a little bit.
August 10th, 2007 - 9:15 am
Just wanted to let you know, I stumbled upon your site this morning and I’m finding it very helpful. Being an artist, I love to create things…but lately I’ve become bored with my usual creative outlets. I’ve always collected different stones and minerals and decided I might like to put them to good use…and so I ended up with the jewelry making. I think it will be a wonderful creative outlet for me. I’m having a hard time finding good resources on the little details because no one seems to want to do the little things (like making headpins instead of buying them). I want my work to be as much “ME” as possible, so thank you for helping me with that.
Jennifer
August 10th, 2007 - 3:05 pm
Thanks Jennifer, and good luck with your jewelry making. If you decide to start working with a torch, be sure to research safety & ventilation so you don’t inhale the fumes. Other than that, I find using the torch to be a lot of fun!
August 11th, 2007 - 3:29 am
Wonderful as always! Very informative and Helpful! I’m going to have to try this!!!
I Could see this as being a awesome project for our group also! Kudos as always!
Alette
August 15th, 2007 - 1:19 pm
That is great, Alette. What is your group? I’d love to see what you make if you decide to try some of your own headpins.
August 16th, 2007 - 7:32 am
interesting post.
October 25th, 2007 - 7:35 am
There are so many expensive classes to learn how to make jewellery in my city but I am so excited to come acros this website, the information is priceless I can’t wait to get started, thank you so much
October 25th, 2007 - 11:19 am
I do recommend taking a class if you can – it sometimes helps to have someone demonstrate a technique. I’m glad if my articles help though!
May 6th, 2008 - 8:09 am
how do you make copper ball end headpins? Will the flux trick work on gold-fill wire to make gold headpins? Thanks for any info!
May 6th, 2008 - 11:20 am
Copper has a higher melting point than silver, so you need a hotter/bigger flame to melt it, but it’s basically the same process as with sterling silver. Gold-filled wire is different, because it’s a thin layer of gold over another metal (brass, I think) so if you melt it, the gold mixes with the core metal. So I probably wouldn’t do this with gold filled wire, but you could try if you don’t mind that the ball might be a slightly different color than the wire.
June 18th, 2008 - 1:29 pm
this article was just the push I needed to go ahead and finally do this!
thanks! i’m posting about my triumph and your blog article on Etsy so you might get a little traffic!
June 19th, 2008 - 9:27 am
thanks Teresa!
July 12th, 2008 - 9:39 am
Hi – what if you want to make your own solid gold head pins? Flux?
Thanks – your website’s great.
R
July 12th, 2008 - 9:42 am
If you want to make solid gold head pins, you need a better torch than the one I have, and some flux. When I’ve worked with 14k gold, I used an oxy/acetylene torch, which gets hotter than propane.
August 15th, 2008 - 2:53 pm
Thanks for this article. I’m in the midst of trying to do this very thing with 24 gauge sterling silver wire. I don’t have any type of torch. This might be silly, but… could I use the burner on the gas stove?
And the other question I have is, what is a tumbler? Is it a machine I’d need to buy?
Thanks for the info,
Kate
August 16th, 2008 - 8:25 am
Hi Kate – you know, I’m not sure if a gas burner would work – I actually don’t know what kind of gas it uses, so I have no idea if it’s hot enough. A tumbler is a machine, you’ve probably heard of rock tumblers that are used to polish rocks – it’s the same idea, but used to polish jewelry. Mine is half full of stainless steel mixed shot, and I toss in the jewelry, cover with water, and add a pinch of tumbling powder (I’ve heard dawn dish soap works well if you don’t have tumbling powder) and then run it for about 15 minutes. Hope this helps!