How thick to make earrings?

[Dave Monk]

I have a customer asking me to make some earrings. I have never made any and am wondering how thick you make yours.

[WayneMahler]

Dave I cut mine from 1/8" BB. The wife says she can't feel them in her ears and sell very well at shows. Oh use surgical steel posts so they don't harm the ears. 

[Dave Monk]

9 minutes ago, WayneMahler said:

Dave I cut mine from 1/8" BB. The wife says she can't feel them in her ears and sell very well at shows. Oh use surgical steel posts so they don't harm the ears. 

Wayne, How do you finish them? How big around? Do you have a picture on the type of posts?

[Roberta Moreton]

Earring posts,  and hooks are in the craft store in the jewelry making isles. They will say on the pkg what they are made of.

[WayneMahler]

3 hours ago, Dave Monk said:

Wayne, How do you finish them? How big around? Do you have a picture on the type of posts?

Dave

I stain mine then finish with poly. If you look at Steve Good's site I believe he has patterns up there for earrings. ASs for the hooks. I order mine online from a place on ebay. I'll have to find that info and I'll send it to you in a PM. 

 

[Dave Monk]

6 hours ago, WayneMahler said:

Dave

I stain mine then finish with poly. If you look at Steve Good's site I believe he has patterns up there for earrings. ASs for the hooks. I order mine online from a place on ebay. I'll have to find that info and I'll send it to you in a PM. 

 

Wayne, Do you spray them or use a wiping type poly?

[WayneMahler]

2 hours ago, Dave Monk said:

Wayne, Do you spray them or use a wiping type poly?

I spray mine. After 2 coats lightly sand them them then shoot them one last time. So a total of 3 coats of poly. Hope this helps you.

[meflick]

No info. on how thick to make or how to finish them as I haven't tried them yet, however as a woman, who wears earrings, I wanted to throw out that you do want them on the "light" weight side.  Most women I know do not like "heavy" earrings.  I have seen some patterns for wooden earrings and for me, they looked to big and bulky and like they would weigh a lot.  Now that said, I also don't like big and bulky earrings but many women do - but even when they are big and bulky looking - they need to be as light weight as possible.  Otherwise, they can start to hurt your ears after a while.

[MrsN]

I have made, and wear a lot of wood earrings. Most of mine are made out of 1/8 or 1/4 inch hardwoods. I also typically spray with lacquer or clear acrylic. A tip for spraying, place a piece of tape sticky side up, stick the earrings to it, then spray. Sometimes the little pieces will move around from the force of the spray. 

As melanie mentioned, weight is important for earrings. Heavy earrings start to hurt after a while. I have been presently surprised by how light most of the designs that I have made end up being.  Wood earrings are often lighter then they appear. 

I would also recommend that you spend just a bit more on the earring hardware and get silver ear wires. It will cost a bit more, but is a selling point for many women.

[amazingkevin]

I like the look of anything miniaturized !

[barb.j.enders]

Some of us are allergic/intolerant to earrings with posts, you can also get hooks at the craft store - here in Winnipeg I go to Michael's.  Anything I have made is with 1/8" woods.  I just usually dip in tung oil.

[WayneG]

On 10/15/2017 at 9:12 AM, Dave Monk said:

I have a customer asking me to make some earrings. I have never made any and am wondering how thick you make yours.

Dave, 

I make loads of earnings and the lady's love them. As others have mentioned Weight is the key here to think about with thickness. I generally use hardwoods when making wood earnings. I will finish them with wipe on or spray poly. For the wow factor with some wood (and other materials) earnings though I use modge podge dimensional magic or envirotex lite to give them a real cool look. Will post a pic or two for comparison

Edited October 20, 2017 by WayneG

[WayneG]

Hond mahogany and Doug fir, about 1/4 inch thick cause they are both light weight woods

[WayneG]

Thinner only cause the wood was scrap that was already thin. Envirotex finish like 50 coats if varnish

Edited October 20, 2017 by WayneG

[Lucky2]

Dave, when I used to make them, I made them from 1/16" up to a little over a 1/4" out of plywood. I would also make them 3-D, those ones were anywhere from 3/4" up to 1 and 1/2". These 3-D ones were a bit difficult to cut, due to the small size of them. They were descent sellers for me, lots of women kept returning for them. Sometimes, they would even ask me to make the ear-rings a specific color or shape, my little dolphin ones were my best sellers.

Len

[CharleyL]

When I make ear rings, the wood pieces are never more than about 1" tall and about 1/4" thick and made from hard woods like maple. I finish them with thinned stains sprayed on with an air brush. A piece of wire is threaded through the drilled attachment hole at the top to hold them while spraying, and I usually put about 4 on the same wire, spaced several inches apart so I can completely spray coat each one. After spraying, I place these wires across two boards standing on edge and spaced apart, enough to hold the wires by their ends and keep the parts from touching anything. After the stain is dry, I usually apply a clear lacquer from a rattle can and then let it dry. Sometimes two coats of lacquer is necessary.

When completely finished, I remove them from the wires and then attach a small gold or silver ring by spreading it open and inserting he ends into the hole in the wood piece, then close the ring with jewelers pliers. I then attach an ear ring hook of gold or silver to this ring. Since most of the ear rings that I make are directional, I orient them correctly when applying the hooks so that they are in pairs and facing forward when used. It's been amazing how many I can make oriented the wrong way and need to take back apart and turn before re-assembly.  Some day I'll develop a method to keep this from happening as I assemble them, but nothing so far has been completely successful. If I was making more than just a few at a time, it would probably become easy to get right the first time.

So far, all of the jewelry hardware that I use has come from Hobby Lobby and I have been quite satisfied with it. 

Charley

Edited October 21, 2017 by CharleyL