hello in this video I'm going to show you how to use the artistic wire finding
form this particular form is for making a Z hook which makes an ideal
clasp so the jigs themselves are very useful they've already got the pegs
already set into them and they arrive with a very handy little spacer press so
you can actually push down your wire onto the jig so they're designed to be
used with 0.6mm or 0.8mm wire which is 22 gauge or 20 gauge I'm going to be using 0.8mm so
I'm going to poke this through the hole in the middle and then just fold it down
against the jig so that it doesn't move around and then start with I'm going to
be wrapping around this peg here so I'm just gonna wrap that round now the
easiest way to use the jigs is to keep the tension in the wire so I'm pulling
on the way over there and then actually move the jig around rather than trying
to do lots of fiddly bits with the wire and I'm going up the top here and this
bit forms the Z. I'm just keeping a nice bit of tension there and then around the
bottom and then around this last peg to finish so you can see the shape but this
Z has now formed and before it takes the wire off the jig I'm just going to
use a spacer press to actually put them over the top of the pegs and just push
down there and then to release my wire from the jig I'm just going to snip with
flush cutters so I'm actually gonna chop that bit off from the back so that
will release my shape from the front okay so I see at the moment I've got a
few bits of excess which we want to get rid of so I'm going to use the flush
cutters to cut inside here so I'm using the flat side which has got the blade
I'm gonna cut just inside there that'll get rid of our long excess bit
of wire and then on this side do the same so flat inside edge just in sight
they're cutting off the excess and that way you don't have lots of excess wire
overlapping on your loops now at this stage you can do any tweaking if there is a
slight bend in the wire you can close up your loops with pliers as well however
one thing that is quite nice to make sure that your wire is going to keep its
shape is to just give it a gentle hammering with a nylon headed hammer and
a bench block there's my bench block the more you work
wire the harder it gets and for something like a clasp which you don't
want to get pulled out of shape is ideal so I'm just using a small nylon headed
hammer be very careful not to bash your fingers and that doesn't really affect
the shape of the wire - you're not hammering any texturing but it does make it that
much stronger and there we have a Z hook you can if you want to actually add
texture so I have here a Whammer so this has got a nice solid head on the hammer
and by holding onto one side and carefully hammering the furthest point away from
your fingers, same on the other side, you can actually create a really nice bit of texture there you can see
that's flattened the ends nicely a bit of an added bonus
if you want to add some texture