Handmade Earwires using Bead Landing Jewelry Jig

00:00:04 –> 00:00:09 Hi guys, its Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor, and today’s studio tip is using a Jewelry

00:00:09 –> 00:00:12 Jig from Bead Landing.

00:00:12 –> 00:00:19 Now I picked up this little tool from Michaels, and I make a lot of ear wires for my Polymer

00:00:19 –> 00:00:23 Clay jewelry, and I usually make them by hand and have a lot of different ways of doing

00:00:23 –> 00:00:24 it.

00:00:24 –> 00:00:30 So…but I thought I’d pick up this jig and try it out and see how it works, and see if

00:00:30 –> 00:00:33 it might be a nice tool for you guys out there.

00:00:33 –> 00:00:41 So what it is, is this tool here, you’ve got… you put your wire in and wrap it around these

00:00:41 –> 00:00:45 different designs, and there’s a bunch of patterns here as you can see.

00:00:45 –> 00:00:52 Now inside this little box is 4 of these plastic inserts that have different patterns, and

00:00:52 –> 00:00:57 I’ll just quickly show them to you, so this is a nice feature with this tool, it’s all

00:00:57 –> 00:01:02 setup nicely and you take your design and pop it into the top.

00:01:02 –> 00:01:07 Now this particular jig comes with 4 different patterns.

00:01:07 –> 00:01:16 This pattern here is what they’re calling a clasp, and it makes these 2 pieces here,

00:01:16 –> 00:01:21 it’s a jump ring… a large jump ring and a toggle, and then this toggle is supposed

00:01:21 –> 00:01:27 to fit through here… through this little jump ring here, and then become a clasp on

00:01:27 –> 00:01:34 the end of a necklace or a bracelet or something, I don’t like this particular pattern…I mean

00:01:34 –> 00:01:40 the jump ring’s kinda nice…really don’t like the toggle, especially at the 20 gauge

00:01:40 –> 00:01:47 wire that I’m using here, but no worries the other patterns I do like, so I would use those

00:01:47 –> 00:01:49 instead.

00:01:49 –> 00:01:57 The next one I’ll show you is this ear wire here, I mean, and these sets each make like

00:01:57 –> 00:02:06 8… or 4 pairs, so 8 different ear wires and it makes a smaller kind of fish hook style

00:02:06 –> 00:02:15 ear wire like this, with an almost sort of oval shaped bottom here and a bit of a hook,

00:02:15 –> 00:02:21 this would be my 3rd favorite out of the 4 designs, I find this a little bit open and

00:02:21 –> 00:02:25 so it can pop out of your ear a little bit, but you can always adjust it and close it

00:02:25 –> 00:02:28 up a bit more if you wanted to.

00:02:28 –> 00:02:36 The next design I’m gonna show you is another sort of a larger fish hook design, and here

00:02:36 –> 00:02:46 is the pattern here, made, it’s a little bit more… larger with a larger loop at the bottom,

00:02:46 –> 00:02:54 and a quite a sharp bend here, this is a nice design and quite workable, and quick to make.

00:02:54 –> 00:03:03 But my favorite of the 4 designs is this last one here, I most likely will end up using

00:03:03 –> 00:03:11 this the most out of the… any of the patterns, and it’s quite a large fish hook but the design

00:03:11 –> 00:03:18 comes right down to here, this wears very nicely, it won’t pop out of your ear as easily,

00:03:18 –> 00:03:29 and then if you hammer the edge… this front edge here, this curve, you get quite a nice

00:03:29 –> 00:03:30 modern design.

00:03:30 –> 00:03:39 And let me just show you how I’ve used those in some earrings here, now this is a Iris

00:03:39 –> 00:03:45 Bead that I made into a pair of earrings, and I used this particular fish hook design

00:03:45 –> 00:03:51 for the ear wire, very nice and pretty, it really suits this style of bead.

00:03:51 –> 00:03:59 I’ve also used the same design in a Sweet Pea Earring…

00:03:59 –> 00:04:05 Sweet Pea Flower, and it looks quite good in that.

00:04:05 –> 00:04:11 Anyways, so I’ll just quickly show you how this all works.

00:04:11 –> 00:04:18 Now I made all these ear wires, and this is the waste that I ended up with from making

00:04:18 –> 00:04:26 4 sets of 8 ear wires and things, so there is some waste, you wouldn’t wanna use these

00:04:26 –> 00:04:33 on your really expensive wire like Gold or Gold filled, you can use it on Silver filled,

00:04:33 –> 00:04:39 it’s not too much waste especially on this pattern here with the largest fish hook, there’s

00:04:39 –> 00:04:42 not too much waste, so I’ll show you how to use that.

00:04:42 –> 00:04:52 For ear wires, I tend… my favorite wires to use are 20 gauge or 21 gauge, I would practice

00:04:52 –> 00:04:57 with a Copper wire to start out with, so you get the feel of how this works and which designs

00:04:57 –> 00:05:05 you like yourself, this is actually some Copper wire I picked up at Home Depot actually, but

00:05:05 –> 00:05:08 that isn’t always available.

00:05:08 –> 00:05:14 Another option, and a more…some Copper will go Green in some people’s ears, so it’s

00:05:14 –> 00:05:20 not the best choice for ear wires for some people, Silver filled is a good choice, I

00:05:20 –> 00:05:28 got this at WireSculpture.com and it’s a Half-Hard 20 gauge Round wire, Silver filled.

00:05:28 –> 00:05:31 Another great option is anodized…

00:05:31 –> 00:05:39 Niobium Wire, this won’t react with people’s ears, so you get these beautiful colors and

00:05:39 –> 00:05:44 it’s a beautiful wire to use, also in Half- Hard 20 gauge.

00:05:44 –> 00:05:51 And another option is Bronze Wire, this one is 20 gauge, but it’s Dead Soft, Dead Soft

00:05:51 –> 00:05:56 would be the easiest wire to use in here, because it’ll just run around the track

00:05:56 –> 00:06:01 like butter, but unless you have a rock… or a tumbler where you can work harden the

00:06:01 –> 00:06:06 Dead Soft, it’ll be too floppy to use in your ears.

00:06:06 –> 00:06:12 So Half Hard is a little trickier to work with, but it’s a better wire to use to keep

00:06:12 –> 00:06:18 the shape, to keep it from just falling apart or bending too easily.

00:06:18 –> 00:06:27 So the way this works is you take your wire… and it’s best to work off the spool, there’s

00:06:27 –> 00:06:36 a tiny little hole at each end, one here and one here, and what you do is you stick your

00:06:36 –> 00:06:42 wire into the hole, and you push it in as far as you can go, and then you follow the

00:06:42 –> 00:06:43 pattern.

00:06:43 –> 00:06:50 So I’m going to push this wire down into the track like that, kind of bend it around the

00:06:50 –> 00:06:58 pattern, and it can be a little tricky, and go around and around, trying to be as smooth

00:06:58 –> 00:07:03 as you can, holding it down and keeping it in the track.

00:07:03 –> 00:07:13 The first couple of earrings are tricky, I think anyways, but after that, once you get

00:07:13 –> 00:07:23 going, you can decide whether you like to move the tool or the wire around the track,

00:07:23 –> 00:07:28 go around like this and as you can see, it’s trying to pop out.

00:07:28 –> 00:07:34 Now you may think that this is not worth the effort, but once you get better at it and

00:07:34 –> 00:07:39 start whipping around this track, you’ve cranked out 8 ear wires in a very short period

00:07:39 –> 00:07:46 of time, so I would continue doing that, but I’m going to stop now.

00:07:46 –> 00:07:53 Now, what happens is, is you’ve got these wires here on the track…now, hopefully,

00:07:53 –> 00:07:58 Doug can see it, but on the pattern, is a little dotted line right down in there, and

00:07:58 –> 00:08:00 that’s your cutting line.

00:08:00 –> 00:08:09 So you would take your flush nosed pliers, and cut right on the cutting line, right in

00:08:09 –> 00:08:18 here, at each of these junctions, right there, right there…that’s jumping all over the

00:08:18 –> 00:08:25 place, then you get all your little wires and I cut them all off, and then there is

00:08:25 –> 00:08:29 a little tail of waste on each of these, a little more on the first one ‘cause some

00:08:29 –> 00:08:31 had to go down into that hole.

00:08:31 –> 00:08:39 But what you’re gonna do is take your pliers and just trim off a little piece in here so

00:08:39 –> 00:08:47 that it fits… so I’ll flip it around, trim off the little tail, and then you have

00:08:47 –> 00:08:49 your ear wire.

00:08:49 –> 00:08:53 Now because you’ve been bending it around and stuff there, you’ll need your flat nose

00:08:53 –> 00:09:00 pliers to straighten it out, or your chain nose and do a little bit of adjusting.

00:09:00 –> 00:09:04 Then you have a nice ear wire, and you have a whole bunch of them, after you quickly go

00:09:04 –> 00:09:06 through the whole set.

00:09:06 –> 00:09:14 Then what you need to do is just take a wire rounder, I have these little cup burs, and

00:09:14 –> 00:09:21 you just take the wire rounder and you round off the end of your ear wire, that makes it

00:09:21 –> 00:09:24 safe to put in your ear.

00:09:24 –> 00:09:31 And if you like the added touch of hammering, then you would just take your steel block,

00:09:31 –> 00:09:39 and hammer the front curve of the wire, never hammer the area that goes through your ear,

00:09:39 –> 00:09:46 ‘cause it’ll make it sharp, but hammering the front part makes it look nice, and it

00:09:46 –> 00:09:56 hardens up the wire, so that its less springy, so it’ll hold its shape more.

00:09:56 –> 00:10:01 So I hope you found that helpful, this is a neat little tool, despite it springing all

00:10:01 –> 00:10:02 over the place.

00:10:02 –> 00:10:06 You’d get a… get a good handle on it, especially when you’re not trying to hold it up for the

00:10:06 –> 00:10:13 camera, you can do quite a few quite quickly with it, there is a little bit of waste on

00:10:13 –> 00:10:18 some of the patterns, but it’s… it’s a neat product to use.

00:10:18 –> 00:10:24 Now if you enjoyed that, you found that helpful, then make sure to push that like button, it

00:10:24 –> 00:10:30 helps get the word out to others, as well if you want you can share this video.

00:10:30 –> 00:10:35 If you have any questions or comments make sure to leave them below.

00:10:35 –> 00:10:42 And my question for today is, would you use a tool like this for making ear wires or would

00:10:42 –> 00:10:46 you rather just buy the ear wires already made?

00:10:46 –> 00:10:50 So I will see you next time, and bye for now.

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