Making a money clip

Hi folks!

I have been told by me ever-indulgent wife that we're giving her brother back in Taiwan a nice silver money clip for Christmas this year. His wife and the three nieces are all getting silver scroll pendants.

I know how to do the pendants (draw and cut a scroll then saw out along the outline - how tough is that?).

But what I don't know are the details on making the money clip. Cut a blank about 'eh' long and engrave it I can handle but how long should I make the segment(s) and what's the best way to fold it into shape? What gauge silver do I want for this? You know - all the little fiddly bits you need to know to make something that a) works and b) lasts.

My metalworking tools, like my metalworking skills, are minimal but I do have a Harbor Freight store less than a mile from my house.

So let's see how many different ways of doing this we wind up with in this thread. Hopefully we'll wind up with something worthy of the Tips section.

Thanks in advance for the help I'm sure is forthcoming!

Rio Grande makes several decent plain silver money clip blanks. The plain bent clips are heat treated or perhaps work hardened to keep the clip springy so it keeps it's tightness. I think they also make some more elaborate blanks with actual steel springs in them.

Steve, Take Scratchmo advise and buy one...
I've made a few from silver and gold and the factory made ones do have more spring...
Forming is the hardest part and if you don't have the silversmith tools it's tuff and taking the little dent's out after forming is time consuming...
The blank silver pendents are also at Rio...
Jerry

Ah, but where's the fun in doing it the easy way?

Plus, the only one at Rio I like is pricey enough that being able to do it myself would pay for a tool or two in fairly short order.

As for the pendants, they don't carry ones like this:


I'm waiting for all the Silversmiths to chime in with what it takes to form a clip before I fall back to the pre-made. The extra work in engraving a pre-formed clip vs. engraving flat and then forming is also a consideration.

Well , i ain't a silversmith but i've bent lots of metal so here goes. figure your length add about 1/2" for the bend. Use a drill bit for the mandrel somewhere under 1/4" I'm guessing.
Place the silver in a vise with leather for a pad from the jaws at the point of the bend, about 1/2 of it sticking above the jaw.Heat the bend area (light rose color) place the mandel on the jaw and with a piece of hardwood (flat) push the top portion over to form something of a 90deg. Re-position and re-heat and bend again as flat as u can make it with the mandel in place. At this point you can put the long ends in the jaws & tighten em' flat. then remove the mandel. after it cools I'm guessing it will be pretty springy.
If u got time try this out with a piece of brass or n silver for a test run.
Only a propane torch and a round piece of steel for tools. And.........be careful with the hot metal use gloves if you're not sure of yourself.
Kent

Thanks Kent!

As it happens I have some silver strip that's too light for much of anything except maybe earrings so I'll use a bit of it to test this method. It'll be too light for a clip but it'll work for a test.

Anyone else with suggestions?

Steve

I am a very new and very much a rookie when it comes to engraving. I just recently found the cafe and have been strictly a lurker to date, however I am a fairly experienced hobby jeweler and feel I can add something to this thread.

First be cautious of heating and bending silver especially Sterling. It can be quite short when hot and is subject to cracks and even shattering if it is worked hot enough. Also heating and cooling silver leaves it in an annealed state. Sterling and to some lessor degree Fine Silver work hardens as you form it. A jeweler will often heat a piece to a dull red heat and quench it several times during a forming procedure to restore its' soft or annealed state. Unlike steel heating and rapid cooling isn't the way to harden it.

I would recommend using Sterling not Fine Silver. Sterling will work harden and reach a spring hardness much easier than Fine Silver. Most sheet as you receive it from the supplier is dead soft, you can buy half hard and spring hard but they are not the norm. As you form the sheet to a hairpin or U shape it will work harden in the area of the bend but the rest of the piece will remain soft and subject to bending during use.

After forming I can suggest two different methods of hardening the piece prior to engraving. Unfortunately both methods require some fairly specialized equipment if you are not a metalsmith.

1. Heat Hardening AKA Precipitation Hardening . It is recommended to heat treat sterling silver at 750°C to 760°C/1,382°F to 1,400°F for 30 minutes, quench immediately. It will now be a fully annealed state. Next you heat age the piece for one hour at 300°C/572°F. Allow to cool slowly by turning the kiln off. The hardness of the sterling alloy can be effectively doubled with this process, from HV 60 in the fully annealed state to HV 120.

2. Tumble Harden. Using a barrel or vibratory tumble with steel shot, water and a burnishing compound you can work harden a piece by processing it for several hours. I generally leave my pieces in over night. BTW if you do decide to go the steel shot route be sure to buy Stainless not carbon steel shot. If you don't rust will drive you crazy. I use Dawn liquid detergent for my burnishing compound. BTW the inexpensive vibratory tumblers the reloader's use for polishing brass don't have enough amplitude to move steel shot effectively.

If I were doing this I would start with 18 or 16 gauge Sterling sheet. I would as Kent suggested start by bending it over a round rod of some sort. I use a inexpensive set of transfer punches for my selection of round mandrels. Use copper sheet to pad the jaws of a vise to hold them for the initial 90 degree bend. Next I would finish the bend by hand and confirm the bend using a Delrin or rawhide hammer. Finally I would go back to vise with the original mandrel in place and use a slightly smaller diameter mandrel on the outside of the clip to put a short reverse bend next the the U. That last step is probably clear as mud. LOL You also might want to consider bending the flair to allow getting the bills in at the open end of the U prior to forming the U shape.

Mike Callihan

Steve~ I use 16 gauge material. The length I use is 4 5/16". When folded, the clip becomes 2". After engraving, I put one end into a vise. Each side of the vise is padded with leather so as not to mar the silver. With the engraved side facing me, I put 5/16" of one end of the clip into the vise and cinch it in tightly. With the engraved side still facing me, I place a thin piece of wood held in both hands at the back side of the clip in such a way that wood also rests on the top portion of the vise. With equal pressure from both hands, I then proceed to pull diagonally downwards towards myself until I achieve about a 45 degree bend. I then have a little jig that I use to bend the clip over on itself. It consists of three pegs. Two pegs are placed next to each other and spaced far enough apart as to allow the the 16 gauge material to fit snugly in the gap. The third peg is positioned where you desire to have the clip folded over. Place the 45 degree bend between the two pegs and then proceed to bend the clip around the third peg as far as it will allow. I usually have a gap of about a 1/4" left over. To fully close the gap; I then position the clip back in the vise and slowly compress the folded portion until the gap is closed. The folding over initiates the hardening process and offers tension. To achieve more tension, I dip the clip in boric acid (to prevent any discoloration to the silver and engraving) and place it in kiln/oven at 600 degrees for 30 minutes. This anneals it to half hard and offers more tension in the fold. You can also use 16 or 18 gauge sterling silver overlay (silver and nickle is the bi-metal composition). Once it is folded over, it has substantially more tension than its solid sterling silver counterpart.
Have fun!

Best regards,
Greg Pauline

Greg,
Any chance you have some pic's of this bending jig? Perhaps the steps?

Thanks

Steve

Greg,

That's such a good idea for bending the clip without marring the metal. I wouldn't mind seeing a pic of that too.

Thanks guys! We're getting the good stuff now!

Greg - I think I like your method best (so far). Sounds like the easiest to do with the fewest extra things.
If I'm envisioning it right your bending jig is pretty much an L shape with the pair of close set pegs at the bottom and the 'fold' peg at the top. You use the 45 degree bend to anchor the piece at the close-set pegs and then fold around the top peg. The original bend is the one to make it easy to get bills into the clip.

For the tightening in the vise I'm guessing you're either putting the top of the clip (that was folded over the single peg) in and carefully compressing that bend or that you're setting the 45 degree lip just below the bottom jaws of the vice. If you have a picture / sketch of this step it would be helpful.

I might be able to get 600F in our oven but if it's 600C I'll need to come up with a small kiln (not that I object to getting another toy but I have limited storage space and will have to set up / tear down around usage so I can't go too big). I have a kiln I can access at a local metalsmith (she has classes which I plan to take when I have time).

So 16ga Sterling will, after engraving and forming, be stiff enough to hold the bills and springy enough to not crack after the 30 min 600 degree heat soak. I assume you just turn off the heat and let it cool slowly rather than quench - right or wrong?

Mike

My worry with tumble hardening an engraved piece would be the process affecting the engraving. Wouldn't want to wind up with it all polished off. Of course I could engrave after forming but that negates the big advantage of doing your own forming of letting you engrave the piece flat.

The more responses I get the more it sounds like this something that I do have the skills, and quite possibly the equipment, to do.

Steve the optimum heat/precipitation hardening temperature for Sterling Silver is 572 degrees F, 600 degrees F would work as well. The initial heating to 1382 degrees F that was suggested in my description is recommended just to put the entire piece in the same state of hardness prior to hardening. Recommended but not necessary.

While tumbling with steel shot is surprisingly gentle on the finished piece I too would be concerned that it might degrade the crispness of a finished engraved piece. I certainly wouldn't recommend doing it without testing. I guess I had envisioned your doing the engraving after forming.

Gregg's recommendation of coating the piece in Boric Acid solution before heat treating is an excellent one. I use a super saturated solution of boric acid powder in denatured alcohol. Broic acid powder can be purchased at most drug stores. It is sold as a roach poison but is pretty benign to humans.

Mike

Greg, I had a moneyclip bending jig made by that machine shop in Reno years ago. When I get time I will take some pictures and post them. The jig works great.

Mike

Thanks for the additonal info - 572F I can reach with a toaster oven for now - that way I can make the one I have to make as a gift and a couple for sale. Selling one or two should pay for one of those Paragon FireFly kilns that run about $300 and which will give me a much better set up for heat treating of things. Even if a quick test shows that I don't have an oven that will reach 572F I do have a kiln I can get access to so this method's looking good!

Need to order some 16ga silver and start working on my designs.

Whew!

Sorry for the long delay in getting back to this thread. I went down with a nasty cold and had the chiropractor reshaping my lower back right after that last post.

I've recovered and (mostly) caught up now.

In the meantime I got some 16ga silver and the ever-indulgent wife bought me a kiln so I wouldn't take over the kitchen oven.

I've done up a little tutorial over on my simple website with what I was taught here that shows making this clip.

Click here for the tutorial.

This is my second attempt - on the first one I was really rusty and got some lines that are just horrible (stupid cold-induced layoff!). This one's flaws are mostly because I transferred on the spine and then just drew a leaf, cut a leaf.