I am a fan of the simple. And simple doesn’t mean cheap or poorly made. I have made my own French wire and kidney wire earring wires for 25 years. Mostly because When I applied to juried shows I wanted to be able to say the bulk of my products were entirely made by me.
Attached is a photo of a wire hook that is really simple to make and very effective. The tail is very long but my feeling is you can cut them shorter but never longer. The longer tail helps to balance longer earrings as well.
I am not a fan of toggles for necklace or bracelet catches. Maybe because I have never made what I would call a successful toggle. But I would suggest The Complete Metalsmith may have a few ideas.
Experiment.
Don Meixner
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROIDOn Mar 5, 2017 3:33 PM, James Sheahan <orchid@ganoksin.com> wrote:
artjeweler
March 5
Hi and thanks to all the talented jewelers who contribute their knowledge to this forum! I am a " hobbyist" jeweler with a lot of professional training, and one of the things I enjoy making most is complex art nouveau style earrings and necklaces w/ handmade chain and mechanisms. I am embarassed to say on my earrings ( which sell instantly) I have only used classic earwires.
I made the realization I don’t actually know much about more complex earring mechanisms ( I suspect it is a guy thing, I never wear earrings myself!) On my stuff I want everything individually handmade, so I’m hoping to see if anyone can steer me to sources for bench processes for handmaking omega clips and other earring mechanisms…Thanks in advance!
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