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Toggle Clasps
Toggle clasps (also called T-bar closures) offer a touch of class! Use as a clasp on a traditional necklace designs, or feature at the front of necklaces as a lariat closure. Toggles are popular for bracelet designs too, because they're easier to manipulate with one hand than many other clasp styles. If you have trouble getting toggle clasps to work for you, please see hints below.
Choose from a large variety of base metal finishes, including bright metals, antiqued (distressed) varieties and copper. Precious-metal options include sterling silver, silver filled and gold filled. (see below for more info about the materials)
Toggle Clasp Hints
To help make sure your toggle clasps can easily be opened and closed, and no one loses one of your creations:
The last few beads you put near the "T" part of the clasp should be small, or use a short section of chain or other pretty link components. This makes sure the bar can be pulled all the way all the way through the ring (making the clasp easier to close).
When using toggle clasps for bracelets, the bracelet must fit the customer fairly well. If the bracelet is too loose, a short toggle bar might wiggle itself out of its loop. Longer bars can help solve the problem, but won't eliminate it. To easily re-size your bracelets to your customers' or gift recipients' wrists, you might want to use a few chain links at one end, or both ends, between the clasp and the last beads.
About the Metals
Sterling silver is often called 925 silver because to be sterling, a silver alloy must contain at least 92.5% pure silver. The benefits of working with sterling silver in your jewelry go beyond quality and panache. You can use these clasps as-is, or solder or wire-wrap accents to them. Plus, you get to choose whether to antique your silver jewelry or polish it to a bright shine.
Gold fill (also called gold overlay or gold-filled) is made by using heat and pressure to apply a layer of karat gold to a base of less costly metal. This produces a surface with karat gold. The minimum layer of karat gold must equal at least 1/20 of the total weight of the item.
What's the Difference between Gold Plate and Gold Fill? Gold fill is 50 to 100,000 times thicker than normal gold plating, and 17 to 25,000 times thicker than heavy gold electroplate (sometimes stamped 14kt HGP). See illustration for more info.
Silver filled is essentially the same thing -- except our silver filled beads and findings are 1/10 silver filled, meaning that 1/10th of the entire component is silver. Silver filled toggle clasps are a perfect alternative to pricier solid sterling silver components, especially when sterling prices spike.
Silver plated toggle clasps have a layer of fine silver, so they nicely match sterling silver findings. However, silver can oxidize (tarnish) over time, so although white plate, rhodium plate, and imitation rhodium plate are a bit grayer, they are also tarnish-resistant.
Gold plating is a brighter yellow than brass or bronze finishes, but antiqued gold can mix well with all 3 finishes.
Antiquing brings out the detail in textured jewelry findings. allowing the designs to really "pop".
Some of our copper toggles are hand-made of solid copper, and then copper plated for a smooth, uniform color.
