No-Heat Spiral Head Pins

This is a very easy way to make a decorative headpin for your earrings or pendants. This is an excellent tutorial, and for those who don't have a torch, you can make lovely head pins this way, and you can make your bottom coil whatever size you want, depending upon what you are using the pin for. She's using 22 ga wire, but I use 24 half-hard for this.

More Head-Pin Making

This is a more advanced method of making a headpin. She's a bit more comfortable with her torch - While I'm fine with holding my torch straight up like that, and putting the entire pin in the flame, you MUST know where the end of the pin is, because that's the ONLY part of the wire you want in the hottest part of the flame. If you leave the wire in too long, it will melt away, and then you'll have something to toss in your broomstick casting pile. A video for that later. :)

Always, always, quench your metal once you've put it in the flame. I'd dump it in pickle after quenching to help remove any fire scale if I were using sterling silver - fire scale is the dark spots that rise to the surface when silver is heated. It's the copper in the silver and if you're making anything bigger than a head pin, you will need to spend a lot of time polishing this out and it's a pain in the butt.