Making Custom Enamel Pins From Home

Enamel pin collecting can be an expensive hobby, and custom enamel pins even more so. Minimum bulk orders and startup costs make it prohibitive to use factories for personal projects. I've tried and tested dozens of tutorials for making enamel pins from home, but none of them quite reached that professional level of quality I wanted.

After weeks of experimentation I've developed my own process enough to where I'm ready to share it with others and I hope inspire some of you to experiment along with me! The finished product isn't quite perfect just yet, but it's getting pretty darn close.

Noteworthy tools and materials:

• Sheet metal
• Adhesive-backed vinyl
• Metal shapers
  • Rotary cutoff wheel
  • Bench grinder
  • Files
• Variable power supply
• Enamel paints
• Solder
• Small torch
• Polishing compound

I like using a whiteboard for sketching out my enamel pin designs. The high contrast helps me be mindful of what's going to be metal vs what's going to be enamel in the final product. It also keeps the design simple, which is important for the manufacturing process and also makes the pin more visually readable.

I originally started off making the vinyl masks by hand, cutting out the design with a scalpel. I've since invested in a Cricut cutter for faster and more consistent production. However you do it, weed out the parts of the vinyl that you want etched. Leave an inch margin of extra vinyl around the design. I add an additional etched outline to all of my pin designs so I have a reference for where to grind down to.

The vinyl used here is Silhouette flat white. Color doesn't matter, but I find that Silhouette's adhesive is strong enough for this application, and the vinyl is pliable enough to wrap the steel well. Stiff and non-sticky vinyl is not worth messing with.

Measure out a bounding rectangle of the pin design then mark and cut off a piece of steel with half inch margins on all sides. Always remember to wear your safety gear when dealing with metal dust! Deburr the rough edges with a file, and thoroughly clean with isopropyl alcohol. I use 16 gauge weldable steel from Menards for the metal, and a Dremel cutoff wheel for cutting.

If the design is one contiguous piece, you can simply peel off the paper backing and apply it directly without hassle. For more complex designs, especially those with floating elements, it's a good idea to transfer the mask using transfer tape.

Cut out a piece of transfer tape that's a little larger than the mask and roll it on to the vinyl, avoiding wrinkles. Remove the paper backing from the vinyl and then roll it onto the steel, making sure that it's roughly centered and has no bubbles or wrinkles. Peel off the transfer tape and wrap the vinyl over the edges. I use Silhouette transfer tape.

I've cut up an old two-wire extension cable for this. Strip an inch of the insulation off of one end and a quarter inch from the other. Fan out the strands on the longer side and position it on the back of the pin blank where it will have good contact. Wrap this all up with another section of vinyl, making sure that it wraps around the edges. Use hot glue to seal up the gap around the wire.

Use a pan made of an electrically insulating material (plastic is great) and fill it with enough water to comfortably cover the pin blank. Add in one teaspoon of salt per one cup of water and dissolve it completely. Warm water helps with dissolving the salt, but avoid using hot water as it will soften the adhesive on the vinyl mask, potentially causing it to release from the metal.

Clip the wire from the pin blank to the positive terminal of the (powered off!) power supply, and a large piece of scrap metal to the negative terminal. Submerge both pieces, positioning them so that the pin is more or less a uniform distance from the cathode. This is to avoid "hot spots" that would form if the pin had one part much closer to the cathode than the rest. Secure both parts to the pan, ensuring that the power supply clips won't slip into the etching bath. This is the specific power supply used here.

Turn on the power supply, set it to 20 volts and let it run. How long it's left to run is dependent on how much surface area is exposed for etching. Etching a single pin like the one shown takes about 7 minutes, but when I run five at a time on one blank I'll leave it for 30 minutes. You can always turn off the power supply prematurely to check on progress and then resume etching.

Once time's up, turn off the power supply and unclip the pieces. Wash off the pin blank and remove the vinyl mask and wire. The now super gross water is fine to be reused a couple times if you're doing multiple batches, and can be flushed down a toilet for disposal.

With the design etched into the steel, it's time to trim off all the excess material. Remove a bulk of the material with a cutoff wheel before moving to the bench grinder to save time. I use a set of vise-grips with some hose drawn over the jaws to hold the steel without marring the pin. Get it close to done on the bench grinder and finish the details of the outline with a needle file. Sand the edges smooth with 220 grit aluminum oxide sandpaper.

Painting the pin is the longest part of this whole process, as it takes many coats to build up a level surface. Paint right over the whole pin with Apple Barrel enamel paint, avoiding bubbles and using thin coats with about 45 minutes between coats. Keep going until the paint is thick enough to be entirely above the un-etched lip of the pin. Because this uses such a small amount of paint, I like to put the enamel directly on the paintbrush so I don't have to pour any onto a tray.

Put the pin on some crumpled tinfoil and place into a cold oven. Heat to 350°F and bake for 50 minutes. The Apple Barrel enamel bottles direct to bake for 30 minutes, but because there's so many coats on the pin it needs to bake for longer. Let cool in the oven.

Sand the back of the pin to remove any rogue enamel and to prep the metal for soldering. Do the same for the pin backing. Place the pin and pin backing on a heat resistant surface. Use a torch (I use a creme brulee torch) to heat up the pin and pin backing. Keep the heat localized and apply some rosin-core solder. If the solder doesn't wick underneath on it's own, or the pin backing moves out of position, simply use a pair of pliers to hold the pin backing and then reflow the solder with the torch. If there is an excess of solder, file it flat and sand out the file marks. These are the specific pin backs used here.

Wet sand the face of the pin on a hard flat surface. I use 220 grit aluminum oxide sandpaper. Sand in a figure-eight patter to avoid unbalanced sanding. Intermittently wash off the pin and sandpaper to keep enamel from building up in the sandpaper. Dry sand enamel off the edges of the pin.

Oh no! You'll notice I didn't do a very good job keeping bubbles out while painting this pin. If this happens, you can easily apply more enamel, re-bake (the pin backing may come off in this step) and sand it again, or just leave it as-is. I kind of like this texture for the bow-tie and will mark it down as a happy little accident :)

Give the pin a shiny finish with polishing compound. Work on a hard flat surface and use a piece of paper as the buffing "cloth". I find that using a regular cloth to polish the pin can cause an uneven surface due to the enamel being softer than the steel. Use small amounts of polishing compound and move to a new spot on the paper whenever it turns dark black. The polishing compound used here is Mothers mag and aluminum polish. It's normally intended for tire rims and so has protective silicone added in the mix, which I wash off once done polishing.

And there we have it: a beautiful enamel pin! You can see some other pins with less bubbly enamel in the second photo. I love giving these out to friends and surprising them with designs custom made for them. Materials-wise they're super cheap to produce, so experiment away!

It took a lot of trial and error figuring out how to make these consistently, so don't be discouraged if your first couple attempts don't work out. I even messed up twice while making this Instructable: painting coats too thick, and I also way over-etched my first bow tie pin blank. There's still so many bits and pieces I want to experiment with, and will definitely keep sharing what I learn.