I needed a couple heart-shaped toggle clasps to finish off some bracelets. Here’s an overview of the basic steps for making them:
Start with a 3.5 cm piece of 16 gauge annealed sterling silver wire. Mine is passed through the rolling mill and it is now square. You can also use round wire. Use a triangular needle file to score the wire in the middle point.
Bend the wire using flat-nose pliers.
Shape it into a heart with round-nose pliers, file the ends so that they meet or overlap each other, as shown above.
Solder one jump ring on each clasp. Also melt a tiny snippet of solder on the scored point of the heart to reinforce it. To make the bar end of the toggle clasp, cut a 2.3 cm length of the same wire and solder a jump ring in the middle point.
File, sand and clean the clasps.
The clasps are now ready to be attached on the bracelets.
After finishing them I also decided to make a ring. So I made one more heart in brass this time and added a sterling silver clasp. Here’s how it turned out:
RAW52 #23 “Open Heart”
Thanks for reading!
