Abstract: A ball bonding method and apparatus is disclosed including gold wire bonding. The steps include positioning and lowering a bond capillary (10) with a bond wire (11) including a flame-scarfed bond wire ball (12) downwardly onto a first bonding pad (17). The bond wire ball (12) is welded by heating and applying a bonding pressure or ultrasonic, or both. The bond capillary (10) is raised and moved to form a loop (21), followed by the step of welding the bond wire (11) to a second bonding pad (16) using heating and applying pressure, ultrasonic or both. The bond capillary (10) is raised to a tail-length position (29) and the bond wire (11) is broken by a vertical pulling force created by closing a clamp (13) onto the wire and raising the clamp (13) engaging the bond wire (11). The end of the free bond wire is flame-scarfed to form a bond wire ball (12).