Michon Jewelry Blog

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.