Hard vs. Soft Enamel

With either process, each area of colour needs to be outlined so that the enamel has ‘walls’ to sit within.

Hard enamel

This is the best option for large areas of colour on metallic pins. Each area is filled to the brim, and then the top surface is ground down to achieve a flat, polished finish - with the enamel sitting flush with the metal.

Due to this finishing process, hard enamel is not compatible with painted metal because the spray paint would be removed.

Our Care Bears Unlock pins use this process, as well as the custom Strawberry Fields example below.

Soft enamel

This is the best option for achieving smaller areas of colour because it is injected into the mould and can run through smaller reservoirs. 

Since the top surface isn't ground like hard enamel, we use soft enamel for all pins with painted metal. For the same reason, soft enamel often sits with a slight recess from the metal, but we can add a resin coating to smooth this over if preferred.

Our Classic Care Bears pins use this process, both to achieve the fine details and because the metal is painted. We also created these custom pins and keyrings for Coroporate Connections, and used soft enamel to infill the text.