Southwestern Style Sterling Silver Necklace

Step 7 Making a clasp

We need to make a clasp to close the chain. For this, I simply used a piece of 18 ga sterling silver wire, bent one end into a loop, then bent the other long side as shown in the picture. OK, maybe it is a little hard to see in the pic--there are some later pics that show the clasp better. But, to try to be more clear, you create a little circle on one end. Figure out roughly where the halfway point in and fold the wire over. this brings both endpoints fairly close to one another. Clip/bend to get them at the same point, then solder both endpoints to the wire where they meet. The small end goes through the little ring on the end of the chain. The long side is bent over a second time to form a U shape that can be clipped into the little ring on the other end of the chain. Aw heck. Seemed easier to just shoot another pic and be done with it. Should be clear now, even tho' the pic is post-polishing, you get the idea.

A little note here about dead soft wire. The bending of wire will make dead soft wire into hard. That means, once you do these bends, it is more difficult to "work" the silver. In this case, that is good because it means the clasp, once bent, then becomes fairly stiff.