Skill Share: Making an ear hook

What you need:

0.7mm - 0.85mm sterling silver wire

pliers: cutting and round
tweezers
torch
striker
2 glass jars
sparex
cheap-o pen

Step One

Cut pieces of wire using your cutting pliers (snips) into 1.5 inch long pieces.

Step Two This is an acetylene set up. First turn the tank on by opening the main valve (turn counter clockwise).

Step 3

Tighten the regulator (turn clockwise). You want to set the PSI to 4-5.

Step 4 Open up the torch valve a bit and light the torch with a striker.

Step 5Hold a piece of wire with tweezers and place it in front of the flame (in front of the small blue cone is the best spot). Keep the wire at a 90 degree angle to get the most centered ball end.Drop the balled ends into a glass of water to quench.

Step 6

Drop your ball ends into a mixture of warm water and sparex (about 1/8th sparex powder) to remove oxidation.

Step 7
Rinse the ball ends in water and baking soda to neutralize the sparex. Dry them off too.

Step 8 Create a small loop using the round nose pliers - holding the wire as close to the ball as possible. With your fingers, push the wire away from you and up around the back of the pliers to create a loop. Step 9
Hold the ball end against a ball point pen or dowel using your thumb. With the other hand wrap the wire around the pen to create your larger loop.
Step 10
To create the final tail use the round nose pliers again at the end of the ear hook. You can just turn the pliers away from you to for the final tail. Lastly clip any remainding wire left over from forming.

Step 11

If you have a dremel or foredom use a cup bur to round the end of the wire. You can also use a small #6 file or a bit of emery paper. If you would like these ear hooks to be super shiny drop them in a tumbler.

Voila!