To folks making Earrings

Where do you get the “hardware”?

posts, and the “hooks” for pierced ears?

thanks,

Chris

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Any craft store will have a wide variety.

If you’re looking for bulk, it’s readily available online. You should decide whether you want silver, gold, something else entirely and what quality you need. [Even if you want specific stores, it’s helpful to have this info to know what to suggest.]

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“Jewelry findings” is your search term. Try Amazon.

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as someone who has never worn earrings, I had a little learning curve with this: there are lots of very cheap findings that are really cheap crappy metal plated with some color or finish which wear quickly, can stain skin, and even cause infections.

Stainless steel is fine. Silver, and gold are good. silver-colored or gold-colored… not so good.

A (signage) client of mine who is a jeweler was looking through some of the earrings I had made, and mentioned that if I was willing to buy sterling silver findings, she would be happy to put my glowforged earrings in her shop, and said they would probably sell fine… at about 2.5 times the price that i have been asking.

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Solid advice from @jbv . You might want some jump rings, some wire. You might need epoxy like E6000 or G-S Hypo cement (which seems a little more permanent in my experience). Firemountaingems.com is a good place to search for findings and tools, and you can even get jump rings premade.

Do a quick search on youtube for how to open and close jump rings and you’ll save yourself hours of trouble. :wink: You’ll also want pliers that are smooth inside (not the usual ones around the house) so they won’t mar the surface of your metal. You’re in for a lot of fun I think.

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I never even thought of craft store as a possibility.

and I dang sure didn’t know that I was looking for Jewelry Findings.

Thanks all :slight_smile:
Chris

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The Ringlord has a number of tutorials on the topic that are helpful (& a super source for rings and other things). Most people try to pull the ring apart vs slipping the two ends past each other front to back.

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A thing to note in making earrings many folk have sensitivity to most materials and not having 18k gold everywhere the earrings touch the ears is a deal killer What I have done is to have a lot of SS earrings that anyone not sensitive and inexpensive and a side group of 18k that can be substituted for an extra charge.

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I went to Jo-Ann to get mine. It gives you a sense of size and what’s available. Lots of different small packets to get going with. You may want to graduate to some higher quality stuff, but at least you’ll get your eyes on the amazing variety of stuff that is around.

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And then there are those of us who won’t wear gold… I think there’s a middle ground, though. The issue is typically nickel and you can get nickel-free options in both gold and sterling silver.

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I went down a Ring Lord rabbit hole after you posted this. :wink:

Are people allergic to nickel?

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Yep.

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Interesting. Didn’t know that, but I don’t wear earrings. My wife doesn’t have a lot of costume jewelry either.

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Nickel is the main culprit and not just with earrings… even things like buttons on jeans.

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The website www.riogrande.com caterers to jewelers and metalsmiths so you can find fine quality “findings” there.

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Yes much Stainless Steel is mostly nickle and the white in white gold (it used to be palladium but …)

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Also if you have a bead shop in your neighborhood they’ll both have some of what you need and have people there who will (almost always) love to walk you through the steps to use them :slight_smile:

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I wanted to offer some puzzle-related earrings at a recent convention, and went with these titanium 6m posts, and used E6000 to glue mirror acrylic to them. You might want to specify that you use a better metal somewhere on your earring placard!

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