An enamel pin is a small metal badge with color sitting in the fields the metal holds. You see it on a jacket, a cap, a bag strap, a lanyard. In Orlando it also shows up after a park week, on a hat that has seen I-4 traffic and afternoon rain, on a tote that went down International Drive. Orlando Pin Company makes enamel pins in this city. This guide is about how one is made, how hard enamel differs from soft enamel, and how to wear one so it still arrives home.
From a drawing to a metal line
Every enamel pin starts as a drawing. Not a shaded picture with gradients and soft shadows. A drawing that can become metal. The line work is the pin. Each color needs a wall around it, so the drawing is simplified into cells: a skyline becomes a few stacked shapes; a palm becomes a trunk and a crown; a city name becomes letters thick enough to hold.
That drawing is cut into a die, then struck or cast as metal. Brass, copper, iron, and zinc alloy are the usual bodies. The strike raises the walls and leaves recessed pockets. Those pockets are where color goes. The walls are the drawing you will still see when the pin is finished. Gold, nickel, brass, or black metal tracing every edge.
Color is filled into those pockets as enamel, then baked so it hardens. Soft and hard here do not mean the pin is bendable. Both finishes bake hard. The difference is how the color sits against the metal line, and how the surface shines when you hold it in Florida light.
Hard enamel and soft enamel
Run a finger across a finished pin. That is the test.
Hard enamel is filled until the color stands at the metal line, then ground and polished so color and metal meet in one plane. You feel a single surface. The shine is even. Enamel and metal both catch light, like a small piece of jewelry. The drawing still reads, but as inlaid color, not as a raised outline. People reach for hard enamel when they want that flush, glass-smooth face.
Soft enamel is filled so the color sits lower than the metal. The line stands. You can feel the drawing: ridges around each field, color recessed like a tiny tray. The metal is the shiny part. The enamel is often more matte unless a clear dome is added later. Soft enamel looks dimensional. On a cap in Lake Nona sun, the raised line throws a little shadow; the color sits in it.
Neither finish is a different kind of pin. Same needle. Same clutch. Same families: enamel, souvenir-style, hat. The choice is surface, line, and shine. Hard enamel is the smooth plane. Soft enamel is the tactile drawing. Get this a hard enamel pin if you want that flush face. Get this a soft enamel pin if you want the raised line. Get this butterfly clutches if the back is already missing.
A cloisonné field is the same idea taken toward glass: color held in a metal cell. You will see the word on older lapel work. For a visitor, it is still enamel in a metal wall.
The needle and the clutch
The back of the pin is a post, a needle, fixed to the metal. It goes through cloth. A clutch slides onto the post and holds. The small clutch in the corner of the header is that back.
The classic clutch is the butterfly back: two small metal wings you pinch to release. It is also called a military clutch. It is the back most people picture on a lapel pin. Pinch the wings, slide it on, let go. Do not yank it off without pinching; that bends the post and chews the fabric.
A rubber clutch is a small disc that grips the post by friction. It is kinder on skin and hair than metal wings, which is why it shows up on hats and beanies. Rubber stretches with use. If a pin starts wandering on a cap after a humid Orlando week, the rubber is often the reason.
Locking clutches exist for cloth that moves. A bag that swings, a jacket you wear through a park day. They take a deliberate pull to release. Use them when losing the pin would ruin the trip.
Some pins have two posts. A larger face on a bag or a heavy jacket is more stable with two. The cloth decides that, not a catalog number on this page.
How to wear one. Jackets, hats, and bags
Jacket and lapel. Push the needle through from the front. Seat the clutch against the cloth, not hanging in air on a long post. A lapel can take a single pin; a denim jacket can take a field of them. Leave space so enamel does not grind on enamel when you move.
Hat. A baseball cap takes a pin in the crown fabric, not through the brim. The brim is too dense. Pinch the panel, pierce the outer cloth, angle the post slightly so the face sits flat. Rubber or locking clutches beat butterfly backs here: metal wings catch sweatbands and hair. A beanie is easier; the knit opens for the post. A bucket hat takes pins in the crown, not along a floppy brim that will sag.
Bag. A tote, a backpack, a camera strap. The pin will get knocked. Use a locking clutch. Pierce a seam or a thicker panel if you can. A bag that went from a downtown hotel to International Drive will test a loose butterfly back before dinner.
Do not pin through a print you care about, a leather grain you would rather not mark, or a hat you would regret marking. The hole is small. It is still a hole.
An Orlando pin
Orlando is heat, hotel hallways, I-4, and the week the parks fill. A pin that lives here has to survive humidity on a cap and a bag that sat on a shuttle. Hard enamel’s polished face shrugs off a wipe after a rain shower. Soft enamel’s recessed color can hold a little dust in the line; a soft cloth clears it.
A souvenir-style pin is still an enamel pin. The subject is the city, the trip, the week. How to wear it home is the next guide. Hard enamel vs souvenir-style is the side-by-side. A starter-board kit is where those faces live once you are home.
Write to Orlando Pin Company
Bring a drawing or a mark you already have. Name the family: enamel, souvenir, or hat. Write sales@tabaconda.com. Publisher: Orlando Pin Company and Tabaconda LLC.