Using Titanium Soldering Clamps for Soldering Earring Posts

I wrote a post recently about forming soldering clamps from the Knew Concepts titanium strips I ordered sometime last year.

One of the most useful clamps I made was a shape that would help me to solder earring posts onto stud and open hoop earrings...

I can position it to hold the post like this for studs....

And like this for soldering posts onto open hoop style earrings....

Previously I was holding the piece of 20g post wire with a pair of tweezers in my right hand and the hoop was held in place using reverse action tweezers in a third hand as it is above. I would hold the torch in my left hand and as the flux heated up and became liquid I would find the post wire would start to move and I'd be forever stopping and trying to get it back in position. The metal for the hoops is only just over 1mm thick in some cases so that also used to make it a bit tricky and swearing would occur quite regularly!

Now that I can set it up with the titanium clamp holding the {much too long in this case!} post wire it's so much easier and less stressful. I flow some solder on to the end of the post wire and position it on the end of the hoop using the titanium clamp then after fluxing I hit the hoop with the torch for a few seconds and it's done.

The post wire is a really too long in the photo but I prefer to allow a bit extra so once the wire is soldered in position I can grab the end in my flat nose pliers and twist it to work harden the post. Then I trim it to size and file and sand the end so it's rounded and comfortable to put in.

Here's some more of the open hoop style earrings I made using the titanium clamp. The patterns are made using brass texture plates in the rolling mill.