Smooth Hammered Hoop Earrings

Jewelry Discussion
1

I am wondering how to make smooth hammered hoop earrings. Please see
this link for an example: http://www.mjmmetal.com/ Look under
“earrings” and scroll to the very end. I have tried hammering with a
ball peen hammer and just bought a planishing hammer for the job, but
both make marks on the egdes of the surface and mar the metal. How
and with what would I go about hammering and does anyone have a
special tool & technique for keeping the earrings from changing
shape?

2 
have tried hammering with a ball peen hammer and just bought a
planishing hammer for the job, but both make marks on the egdes of
the surface and mar the metal. 

It is probably both the hammer and the technique. If your
planishing hammer has an end that is a bit more domed than the
other, use that end. It will help if you round off the edges with
a beltsander or files and then buff to a shinning smoothness.
Bring you hammer down straight and do not lead with an edge. Use
multiple hits and overlap them. Do not try to do it in one go
round.

marilyn

3

Hi Shelley,

Looking at the photos in the link you provided, I can see hammer
marks - they aren’t completely smooth. If you want the piece to be
smooth, you can sand it. 3M makes wonderful sandpapers, mentioned
here recently.

With practice, you can learn to hammer leaving few marks. When you
hammer metal, however, the metal will move - the wire will flatten,
get wider, etc - which is the point of hammering anyway. So I’m not
sure what you mean by preventing the earrings from changing shape,
but certainly a circle of wire can be hammered, and remain a circle.

Nancie

4 
How and with what would I go about hammering and does anyone have a
special tool & technique for keeping the earrings from changing
shape?

One way I have found that works on thin, small surfaces (and it
could be considered totally cheating) is not using a hammer. If
during finishing you hold a fairly course rubber wheel on the
surface for an extended period of time, it will create a divot.
Just continue this process over entire surface. It doesn’t take
long, and won’t change the shape of the earrings.

I hope this may help.

cheers… tracey
www.greenspotstudio.com

5 
How and with what would I go about hammering and does anyone have
a special tool & technique for keeping the earrings from changing
shape?

You might try using a ‘hammer handpiece’ on a flexshaft to texture
the earring. Usually the tips are changeable on hammer handpieces &
by selecting a tip/s with a suitable shape/s you can complete the
texturing job. Another nice thing about hammer handpieces is that
the force of the impact can be adjusted for different amounts of
penetration.

Dave

6

Shelley,

Sorry if this response is late, but I’ve been out of town. The
earrings that you’re looking to make actually have a hammered
finish. We carry these in our store and they are beautiful, but not
smooth. The pics may be misleading.

-amery

7

What I have found helpful to get a smotth finish is using the
bristle brus on your polishing splindle. That way you can get in
there and control the amount of metal that can be polished away. I
hammer, bob, trip, somtimes tumble or rouge and it gets a very smooth
and textured surface. Good luck.