Kilt Pin

[cms1528]

Has anyone fashioned their own kilt pin? I have been giving some thought to the idea, I'm not a jewelry maker but have some ideas. Just curious want some of the talented members out here have to say or have done. Best reagrds.

[Father Bill]

Has anyone fashioned their own kilt pin? I have been giving some thought to the idea, I'm not a jewelry maker but have some ideas. Just curious want some of the talented members out here have to say or have done. Best reagrds.

I'm not a pin-maker, but there's this old thread that may be of help for thoughts and perhaps one or two hand-made items may be in it. Unfortunately, a lot of the pictures died when 'photobucket' decided to put up a paywall and several members refused to pay to ransom their pictures, but there are still a lot of pictures extant.

Good luck!

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...lt-pins-64703/

[imbrius]

My wife made a pin for me by soldering a pin back to an old brass hour hand from a clock. It looks very nice.

[MichiganKyle]

I haven't made a kilt pin (haven't thought of a suitable design which I otherwise couldn't just buy), but I have done some pewter casting. Pretty easy to get started with, if you're interested in trying it. Get yourself a starter kit of Mold Star 15 from your local Smooth-On distributor, some talcum powder from the grocery store to use as a release agent, some pewter (such as from RotoMetals - they have a good video on their alloys), a small melter and a dipping ladle (available on Amazon or from RotoMetals), and you're off to the races. Maybe throw in a little chunk of wax when melting to use as a flux and keep it from oxidizing while it's liquid. Lots of videos and written info about the process is available online. It's easy to do and quite fun! It can, however, be a little smoky depending on if you use flux and what kind, so my casting days are over until it's warm enough out to do it in the shop with the doors open. And if you mess up, throw it back in and remelt it and try again. Repeat as necessary until you get the results you want.

[cms1528]

I never thought of using pewter, thanks for the the valuable tip.

[Lexx]

Don't know if I'm too late to the party, but... lost wax casting and silicone rubber moulds make for a pretty straightforward way of making silver jewellery.

If you can make a master copy of what you want your klit pin to be in a three dimentional form out of anything - almost anything at all - it can be metal, wood, wax*, 3D printed etcetera. And if you can find a casting company in your local area who also do finishing on single run items (soldering on a hinged pin and locking hasp, and papering and polishing) then that's all you need to produce whatever you want.

They'll take your master and produce a silicone mould - you can do this yourself, but unless you have a vaccum chamber to degass the mixed silicone you'll almost certianly get bubbles on the surface of your master - cut open the mould and poduce a wax copy (you don't have a wax injector and don't want to buy one... trust me), this goes onto a tree with many other waxes, gets invested (and again degassed), cured, the wax gets burnt out, and the void left is filled with silver (or other metal of your choice)

You're in the USoA I see, so should have plenty of choice of casters, it's finding ones that will do finishing for a single item that will be more dificult, though many will recomend companys that will do finishing - the latter is the case with the casting company I use. But I do all my own finishing anyway so that makes no diference to me.

*If you can produce exactly what you want in wax and you're really confident about the finish and deatil you're able to achieve then you can have them cast directly from your wax, saving you the cost of a silicone mould (for me it's about £35 for a kilt pin sized cold mould)

[GG]

I wouldn’t say that I have made a special kilt pin or have had one made.

But every year we in DK in week 43 have a campaign called “Beat Cancer”.
In connection with this you can in all supermarkets and in many other shops buy a needle in two versions, each costing DKK25 equalizing USD4.

16 years ago, my wife had cancer and had to go through surgery. She was lucky.

Now, every year I will buy these needles to support the Beat Cancer campaign. And I will wear them as kilt pins on some of my kilts, rather than any other kilt pins I have.




Greg

[neo71665]

Tell your wife stand strong Greg. My g/f her mother and I are all cancer fighters.

As for the topic I've done plenty of lost wax casting. Never a kilt pin but I've done a few rings and mostly car parts. Actually built a home foundry and have started casting custom aluminum parts. Now you guys got me thinking I need to cast a pin, gee thanks a-holes more unpaid work lmao

[OC Richard]

I think it's the one of the oddest things that I've seen here on XMarks, the "Show Us Your Kilt Pins" thread.

Why so you ask?

The background is that back in 1975 when I got my first set of pipes I got hold of a catalogue that had a wide array of Highland Dress and accessories, The Scottish Shopper in Seattle.

There was no internet, and no shops anywhere in the region that had anything like that, so that catalogue for me (and many other Americans of my generation) was the only source.

There were kilts, kilt jackets, sporrans, ghillie brogues, kilt hose, Scottish bonnets, and kilt pins.

I was fascinated with the page of kilt pins. Here it is. They were so intricate and beautiful!



I've always loved the kilt pins made by firms like Robert Allison and others. Here's a thread I did about them

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...lt-pins-94957/

So fast forward to XMarks' "Show Us Your Kilt Pins" thread and I was amazed that most of the things people were posting were not, in fact, kilt pins. It seemed like people were pinning onto their kilts anything that a human could own. I think one person pinned electronic parts on their kilt.

It would be like a "show us your sporrans" thread in which the majority of things were women's purses and military pouches, as if people were avoiding the very things designed and made to be sporrans.

[Tomo]

They were so intricate and beautiful!

Now, I do like that luckenbooth one (middle-row, just left of centre).

Struggled to find one like this - so I have a pewter brooch that has been pressed into service (sorry OCR) - it's a fairly art deco style and I think just about works as a pin. I also use another brooch as pin. This is round white metal with thistles and a staghorn centre cap. Again I think it works - maybe a bit weird but happy to accept these are not in fact kilt pins.

My other kilt pins are more organic - in antler, oxhorn, ramshorn and wood - and were made as kilt pins.