Has anyone made Sterling or Gold Sewing Needles. Basically getting a
good smooth eye would seem to be the problem.
Could you make the wire too heavy, drill the hole and then pull it
through your draw plate? karen in vancouver
I actually just got a request to make a sterling sewing needle for a
friend of mine who does rennaissance stuff. I didn’t think that
would be a problem, but now that you mention it…I would think the
best way to get in there to smooth the eye would be to get some
tripoli or zam (whichever you use) on a peice of cotton string
…thread and smooth…I would think that would work…please let me
know your results thanx! -julia
No problem on getting the eye smooth. Pierce the hole in the metal
then use a very small file to shape it. If you don’t have that small
of a file grind down the end of an old worn out file until you have
the right size. Make sure not to get it to hot while grinding because
you will loose the temper. After the hole is shaped use an actual
steel needle to burnish the hole smooth you can get almost a mirror
finish that way. As a final step use a piece of thread that has been
run along some polishing compound and run it back and fourth through
the hole. Ptock2 in Tennessee
Warn your friend that sterling or fine silver needles will
contaminate fine work and cause it to discolor.This is especially true
with silk. Seeing that the amount of metal is so small I would have
thought that you could do the dame thing in hard 18ct gold for very little more.
Do you think the tape or string emery sold by Micro-Mark for Model
work would handle smoothing out the needle’s eye? Recently bought
some, but have not used it yet.
Teresa
I’d just thrum the eye of the needle using heavy thread and tripoli.
Karen