What Is The Difference Between Hard and Soft Enamel Pins?
A Rough Guide For Artists And Creatives Who Sell On Etsy
The Enamel Pin Trend is approaching the tipping point. Artists and creatives are embracing this old-school medium with open arms.
Why wouldn’t they? You can render art on a one inch metal canvas for under five bucks and double your money on online art communities like Etsy.
The manufacturing and supply side of the industry itself is a variable rats nest of terms, methods and processes that any artist needs to understand prior to purchasing their first custom enamel pin.
The main issue is that we have a domestic scene and an Asian scene. Both types of suppliers invent, bastardize and embellish trade names of products to the point where your head is spinning.
The number one question you need to answer prior to designing and purchasing your first enamel pins is: what type of enamel you are going to use.
If you ask a customer service rep at a factory or online suppliers, they will tell you that the art dictate the process.
If you ask a veteran enamel pin designers, they’ll say that soft enamel is cheaper and for that reason they select it.
The primary difference between the two enamel pin manufacturing processes is that they use a lot less paint in the soft enamel process and the cost is substantially cheaper than hard enamel.
Each artist is different. Every pin design is unique. There is no hard and fast rules about why you would select either process. But the biggest reason to select the soft enamel process, has NOTHING to do with paint. (More industry confusion and mumbo-jumbo….sorry)
Choosing Between Soft Or Hard Enamel Lapel Pins
Pick Soft Enamel When…
- You Need A Coloured Base Metal (ie- Black or White)
The single most compelling reason to select soft enamel is if you want to change the base metal colour to something other than bronze, nickel or gold.
The coolest thing that has happened to the industry in the past 5 years is the arrival of dyed metal. This has nothing to do with the enamel. But as an artist you can definitely relate to positive and negative space. Using a black or white dyed metal base opens up a lot of creative possibilities. With traditional base metal (ie- bronze, nickel, gold) you are always compromising your art colour selection to work with the raised metal details in your art. With dyed metal it’s way easier to keep your art the same way you designed it. Otherwise you are always changing details like eyes, action lines and borders to gold or silver.
Here is the catch: dyed metal is available only in SOFT enamel process.
In Soft Enamel you can dye the base metal black, white, purple, orange or pink. It doesn’t add any cost and it opens up so many choices for artists.
2. Pick Soft Enamel For The Look Of It
The primary difference between soft and hard enamel is that the paint is thinner in soft enamel. This gives the enamel a bit of differentiation from the base metal. It catches the light a bit more. Hard enamel doesn’t have that quality.
3. Pick Soft Enamel For The Price
On average, the price of soft enamel is around 40% cheaper depending on your quantity.
4. Your Design Is Larger than 1.5"
There is another trend in enamel pin land. BIG pins. Especially on the fandom and collector side of things where artists can get away charging a lot more for a pin. The sizes are creeping up into three and even four inches now!
Each process experiences a hefty price jump above 1.25" due to the base metal coil size. So for larger pins, you’ll probably price yourself out of the ballpark for large pins unless you use soft enamel.
Pick Hard Enamel When…
- When Perceived Value Is Important. Hard Enamel is ideal for things like necklace charms and jewelry. The paint is level with the surface giving it the look and feel of quality. You’ll need to charge more if you are re-selling.
- Personal Preference. You prefer the way it looks. As an old school dude in pinland, I prefer this process. The pin feels “high-end”.
- When Special Effects Are Needed. If you require transparent enamels. You can use this enamel type on both processes but it really works well with hard enamel. Especially when you combine engraved background textures.
