Hard Enamel Vs. Soft Enamel Pins and Keychains

What is Enamel?

Enamel in the world of custom projects is the color that fills in the empty spaces of your custom lapel pin or coin. We produce custom pins, coins, and keychains using a custom mold of your design. We then cover that base with metal plating by dipping the metal. After this, solvent paint color is poured into the divots on your pin or coin. The paint hardens and becomes opaque, making the distinct colors on your custom metalwork!

What Type Should I Choose for my Pins or Coins?

For deciding between the different enamel fills you will want to ultimately keep the overall finish of your lapel pin or coin in mind.

• Do you want your pin or coin to have texture?
• Do you want to give more dimension to your lapel pin or coin?
• Do you want to have a distinct difference between the color and metal plating of your pin or coin?

Soft Enamel

Soft enamel is when the pin or coin has an enamel color not filled to the top of the metal mold. When this happens, the enamel sits lower and creates a textured finish for your custom project. You make the metal plating more prominent when using soft enamel since the metal plating is raised above the enamel colors. Because soft enamel uses less enamel overall and doesn’t require an extra finish, coins, pins, and keychains that use soft enamel will be slightly less expensive than other projects with hard enamel. However, soft enamel creates shadows when the pins or coins hit light in a certain way. If you don’t want any shadows, then you would want to lean more toward hard enamel.

Hard Enamel

A hard enamel color is filled to the top of the metal mold of your pin or coin. We then coat the colors in a clear epoxy finish, giving a flat, clean finish for your custom coins or pins. Hard enamel still has a shine to it, but doesn’t have any shadows when catching light at different angles. Because the enamel sits at the same level as the metal mold of your pin or coin, it makes the metal finish less distinct overall on your pin or coin. Hard enamel uses a bit more material than soft enamel finishes, so it does run slightly more expensive. That is usually only about 10-20 cents more than soft enamel though, so it’s not a significant price change! You won’t cut in your pocket using hard enamel compared to soft enamel.

Still Need Help Choosing?

Are you not sure which enamel fill will work best for your design? We can have our sales reps take a look at it for you after you submit a formal quote request on our website. By uploading your custom design, we can give it a review and let you know what we would recommend for you!