How To Make Sterling Silver Head Pins

Okay I promised to do a picture tutorial of how to make headpins at home. Please be patient as I am recovering from pneumonia.

Obviously the first thing you will need are your supplies and someplace safe to light your torch. I don't recommend your living room. I know you may not like those curtains but trust me there is a better way.

You need your sterling silver wire 18 to 24 guage round either dead soft or half hard.(personal preference and depending on what you are using them for) Something to hold them with as you apply your torch. I am using what is called a third hand. Basically anything that will hold your wire and not catch on fire or melt while near the torch. Your fingers do NOT fall under this category and will most definitely burn. Even if you miss them with the torch the wire itself get hot all the way to to top so be careful. it to cool completely or use tweezers, pliers whatever to remove them from your holder.(Yes I am speaking from experience, take my word for it). You also need a torch. Mine is from Home Depot and was 14 dollars. Please read the directions FIRST. Move anything flammable from around your space you will be working in. (you would be surprised at how far the flame actually goes). Now you will need to cut your wire to the appropriate length ( I am still working on how long to cut for the amount I want to have left but it is just a matter of trial and error to figure out the right length.) Hook up your first piece of wire and light your torch. Apply the flame to the bottom of the head pin and watch for it turn red. This does not take long! As soon as it turns red it balls up and you can remove the torch and turn it off. Either wait for the pin to cool or use a tweezer or plier to remove it from you third hand.( I cannot emphasis this part enough, third degree burns do ugly things to fingerprints!). Continue with this process until you have made the desired amount of heads pins. This is what they should look like at this point. Not very attractive and kind of dirty looking.. At this point they need to go into the pickle pot so that the fire scale will be removed and they will start to look like usable pieces. Again please read all the directions for your pickle if you have never tried this before. After pickling the head pins come out with a whitish coating on them. This is normal, please don't panic, you have not done anything wrong. The next step is to toss them in your tumbler and give them a spin for about two hours. This not only makes them nice and shiny but also makes them stronger. Then you just straighten any that you need to straighten and you have now created your very own headpins to work with. I hope this has been a helpful piece for those of you just starting out. Please follow all safety and handling instructions when you attempt to do this.
Many thanks go to the fine etsians who have been kind enough to share their knowledge in the forums and in tutorials of their own. Not limited to but including

GlitterCritter, LooseWireStudio Stereotte, and WireYourWorld to name a few.

How to Cut Rocks Step Three

Sorry it took so long to get back to this, the holidays were a bit crazy and since we are now short one person at work (with absolutely no plans to replace him for at least a year) I have been working more too. This is tough because even though I like my job I would rather be designing and making jewelry so having less time to spend doing that and promoting my store does not really thrill me. Although the extra money is always a good thing lol!

So we left off at the trim saw. The next step is cabbing the stone. This takes a little more skill and time although there are some tricks to make it easier. This step requires lots of water instead of oil to avoid heat. You do want to make sure all of the oil is off of your stone. We use a bucket of kitty litter and a brush. Then wash well with warm, soapy water. (The large round object in the picture is a vibratory tumbler. We use this for all of the odds and ends left over from the trim saw . After several weeks it gives us highly polished stones that the kids at the gem show go nuts over). So we have our lovely almost oval trim sawed stone and we are going to start grinding it to a 15 degree angle with the machine on the left. This machine does not have removable belts, the grinding wheel has tiny diamond pieces embedded in it. This spins at a high rate of speed. A plastic apron is a good idea with this machine as the water you use to keep it from getting too hot sprays in the direction of your body not the wall. Also eye protection is a must. Here is one of the tricks of the trade. The grinding wheel has a natural 15 degree angle so that you really don't have to do any fancy calculations to get it right. Remember that oval we drew on here with the magnesium stick? This is where you want to grind it to. This is the back of your piece and the angled portion is the front. When you have it to the right size and before you begin to grind your dome you need to put it on a dap stick. I am going to leave off here because I need to take pictures of the dap stick and how it is done before I can continue. (Remembering the camera is always an issue for me. When I head for the rock club I usually have two toolboxes and my purse, and since it is winter my coat, gloves etc. I'm lucky I remember my name on some days much less the camera lol!). This is a good stopping point as I will be able to finish hoe to cut rocks with my next post on this subject in a couple of weeks.