How to Make Earring Wires

Why buy findings when you can make them? 

Sometimes making your own earring wires to perfectly complement your design is just the thing to set your earrings apart from the rest of the pack. 

Instructions

New! Material and Tool Resources can be found at the end of this tutorial

Tools:

• A marker or a dowel (to use as a mandrel)
• Side Flush cutters
• Round nose pliers
• Flat file
• Steel bench block or anvil
• Chasing hammer (or other smooth headed hammer or household hammer)

Materials

• 20 gauge sterling silver wire (either half-hard or dead-soft. Both will work. I'm using dead-soft.)
• Optional - Liver of sulphur if you wan to oxidize your wire like mine

Step 1:

Make a coil of wire by wrapping a length of wire around your dowel or marker

Step 2:

 Cut apart the coil so that you have equally sized rings

Step 3:

Using your round nose pliers, make a loop on one side of each ring

Step 4:

Using your flat file, gently file down the eadges of the remaining cut end to make sure there aren't any rough bits. 

Take extra care with this - this is the part that will go through the piercing of your ear remember.  Any sharp bits will make micro-tears in the ear and may cause discomfort and irritation.

Step 5:

Gently turn up the ends that you just filed.

Step 6:

Use a smaller dowel or mandrel to gently press the loop into a slightly more oval shape.  (This is personal preference so you can skip this if you want.)

Step 7:

Gently hammer the earring wires to harden them.  I like a slightly flattened look to them so I like using a metal hammer.  To harden without flattening the metal, use a rawhide or nylon mallet.

The finished earwires should look like this:

Step 8:

Add your dangly bits and look ma!  Gorgeous earrings with handmade ear wires!

Materials and tools for this project:

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