{"id":1558,"date":"2009-10-18T10:01:20","date_gmt":"2009-10-18T18:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/?p=1558"},"modified":"2023-02-22T14:36:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T22:36:35","slug":"free-project-tricky-balled-up-ear-wires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/18\/free-project-tricky-balled-up-ear-wires\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Project: Tricky Balled-up Ear Wires"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"t-Finished\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This project is for everybody, but is specially dedicated to the brave girls in Sydney who took my two evening classes <\/strong>on balling up a wire at both ends. How fun was that? Here is another thing you can do with this technique, although it’s a little more tricky. You may have to do this a few times until you succeed. I suggest practicing with scrap wire. Seriously, if you manage to do this one, you can consider yourself an expert on balling up wire.<\/p>\n

Here are three solid rods from silver, copper, and bronze clay, with a side hole in each. (You can click on the photos to enlarge.)<\/p>\n

\"Step<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>

Step 1<\/p><\/div>\n

Cut a piece of fine silver or Argentium wire, 0.7-0.8mm (22 gauge), 8 cm (3″) long.<\/p>\n

\"Step<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>

Step 2<\/p><\/div>\n

Bend the wire into a U shape.<\/p>\n

\"Step<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>

Step 3<\/p><\/div>\n

Cut another piece of wire of the same thickness and thread it through the side holes. Let it stick out by about 1 cm (0.75″) on each side.<\/p>\n

\"Step<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>

Step 4<\/p><\/div>\n

Overlap the ends of the U-shaped wire with the end of the horizontal piece of wire, as shown in the photo.<\/p>\n

\"Step<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>

Step 5<\/p><\/div>\n

Twist one end of the U-shaped wire with one end of the horizontal wire. Repeat with the other end.<\/p>\n

\"Step<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>

Step 6<\/p><\/div>\n

Cut off the twist to about a 5 mm length on each end.<\/p>\n

\"Step<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>

Step 7<\/p><\/div>\n

Hold the earring with cross-lock tweezers with one twisted end held vertically down.<\/p>\n

\"Step<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>

Step 8<\/p><\/div>\n

Using a propane\/oxygen torch, ball up the twisted end. This is the tricky part, since you need to remove the flame on time, as soon as the twist is balled-up, or the wire will melt and the connection will open up.<\/p>\n

\"Step<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>

Step 9<\/p><\/div>\n

Repeat this step with the other twisted end.<\/p>\n

Good luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This project is for everybody, but is specially dedicated to the brave girls in Sydney who took my two evening classes on balling up a wire at both ends. How fun was that? Here is another thing you can do with this technique, although it’s a little more tricky. You may have to do this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9263,"href":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions\/9263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artinsilver.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}