Hi . Cost of sterling silver head pins . Wow . Want to and like to use sterling silver findings but headpins etc . Does any of you lovely people use solver plated even if use sterling silver clasps etc . Or make ur own using sterling silver wire . X
I use both, depending on the quality of the stones I’m creating with, so I’d not use sterling with shell or wouldn’t think of anything other than sterling with sapphires, pearls etc. I will redo a design in sterling on request, swop plate hooks etc. Price clearly to reflect the quality of the products you use. So plate earrings I tend to say £5 for but sterling more like £15. Remember some customers may have allergies preventing them from wearing plated, even with a hypoallergenic coating on them. The only thing I don’t use is solid gold, I don’t want to charge the prices it needs, but do use gold plated sterling, and will quote to upgrade it. If you are using sterling headpins, make sure you keep your off cuts, eventually they can be sold back to certain places to be melted down.
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I make my own head pins - if you heat up the end of the wire with a blow torch it will melt and ball up to give you a head pin. I don’t mix silver and silver plated within an item, its either all sterling silver or all silver plated.
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Hi … what wire do u use to make ur headpins xxx
Depends on the size of the hole in the bead I’m planning on using (I have a reasonable selection of wires to choose from). For the very little light weight ones I use 0.3mm fine silver wire but they are only suitable for use with very small beads (under 5mm) as they are quite soft. For bigger beads I use 0.5mm sterling silver and have resorted to 0.7mm sterling for somethings but it can then become hard work to wrap the loop at the other end.
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I Agree with Sasha, it’s best not to mix your metals, it is so much cheaper to make your own head pins can’t remember when i last bought any, easy peesy to make as sasha says, smallest wire i have used for headpins is 0.4 mm you can harden the wire a little before using them by popping in a tumbler if you have one, or you can planish them ( rub them over gently with a stainless steel rod ) other than that 0.6 mm is what they would get if you bought them ready made. Stongest i’ve used i 1mm thick but not ideal for wrapping.
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I only use sterling for ear wires.
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Where would anyone recomend i buy the wire from to make head pins ey pins . What sizes should i get to start off with . I have not really played around with earings so wanna get creating and practicing
Im aware of spelling errors sorry
Also do i need a pickling pot ect . If so where best pla e to get this
If you are heating the metal up then it will need pickling afterwards to remove fire scale. You can buy pickling pots that warm the solution to speed up the process but I just drop the hot piece of metal into a pyrex bowl of cold pickling solution. You need to buy the pickling chemicals from somewhere like cookson gold.
You can buy silver wire from cookson gold or palmers metals but it will get expensive very quickly. If you’ve not had much luck selling items before or want to try out different designs you might want to start off with silver plate wire which is a fraction of the cost.
Yes im going to do this … been looking into it . And taking everyones helpfull advise. I will get silver plated to dabble with . And maybe purchase a few sterling ones in few sizes for finished bits . Even if there for me to wear . Lol . Thankyou . I think it is somethi g worth doing if your going to be maki g and making and making lots to keep cost down . But it does look like u need patients for that … lol
Have you tried International Craft? Type them into Google. I use them for some sterling findings (ones that aren’t cost effective to make) and they’re the most affordable I’ve ever found.
I hope this helps!
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