Length about 9 - 10mm
|…—\ Stainless or sterling wire 6.5 - 7.5mm Use
|’’’—/ mousetail file to make the circumferential dent. ^
‘nut’ holds here
AN EAR-WIRE JIG
||
| 1 O |
| | (can’t draw circles in this system! Pretend that
| 0 | square is a circle mounted on a handle of thick
| 2o 3o | wooden dowel with a countersunk screw [0])
| |
||
1 is a bit of rod (or thin wall tube) about 6mm dia and about 8mm long, hard soldered to a circle of brass sheet about 1mm thick.
2 & 3 are pins made of small nails with the heads removed, about 8mm long also soldered to the brass circle base. Accuracy isn’t very important - it is so easy to make you can do another one if it doesn’t work well first time.
TO USE: a) take a piece of sterling or stainless wire (no other substitutes) of reasonable length.
b) place the wire on the jig between nail 3 and the rod/tube 1, bring it around 1 so it lies between 1 and nail 2, the end pointing down toward you.
c) Take a single turn with the wire over 2 so it points between 2 & 3 (at right angles to the first position.)
d) You can now snip the wire where it sticks out past 2
e) Remove the earwire from the jig and flatten it out.
OR: f) Take a half turn around 3 to form a little loop and snip, leaving just enough wire to act as a catch for the vertical wire end.
That’s it. A complete earwire takes about 10 seconds to make!
I’d like to have shown a sketch of the finished earwire, but can’t with this system, but have fun anyway!
/\
/ / John Burgess
/ /
/ /__ johnb@ts.co.nz
/ / \ \
/ (___)
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