Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supplies needs!
Welcome back to Beadaholque.com's Learn to Bead Video Series. This is our fourth installment
and in it we're going to cover the essential tools you need to start beading.
When you first begin beading it can be overwhelming as to all the tools available to you. So in
this video I want to cover the basics. What you'll need to have to complete most of the
project you see here on Beadaholique.com and elsewhere.
Some of these tools might look like the ones you have in your garage or hardware drawer.
But they're not.
Those tools are usually serrated and as you can see here they are very smooth and precision
tools for jewelry making that we have in front of us.
Also the ones that you have from the hardware store usually quite bulky and these are
very
lightweight, easy to use and easy to hold onto.
The first tool I want to focus on is as simple a pair of scissors. Pretty basic and straight forward.
You can get these anywhere.
You just wanna make sure that they are sharp enough to cut
some ribbon.
Just want to make sure they make a nice clean cut
and a lot of people actually go ahead and they and they just tie a little bit of ribbon
around the handle.
This just let's everyone else and household know that these are actually made
for jewelry making and not to be used for other projects. You wanna make sure that your
tools stay
free of grime and that they're edges remain sharp.
The next tool you're going to need is a nice pair of flush cutters. Flush cutters are different
than wire cutters.
You can see that these have a nice smooth edge to them. They taper to a point
and they are made specifically for cutting beading wire. I have a little bit it beading
wire right here.
I'll cut through it
and then they are so great for cutting wire when you're doing wrapped wire loop, simple
wire loops. That sharp little point
will get right in there and make a nice clean close cut for you.
The next tool you're going to need is a pair of
round nose pliers.
Pretty obvious where they got their name. You can see that they do have a rounded
nose. It has two sides to it.
You're going to use these for creating wrapped wire loops, simple wire loops, bending
wire.
I have a piece of twenty gauge wire right here
and I want to show you very
quickly and easily. What you do you just
bend it and you can see that made a perfect archway.
Now that of the tip of the round nose pliers is gonna be narrower than the base and so that's
going to determine the diameter of your loops. So if I wanted say a really big loop
I could go ahead and I bend it right here.
It going to give me a nice thicker
curve.
If I wanted a really tight and narrow loop
just bend it right there.
We have video tutorials in our series as well about how to make a simple wire loop and wrapped wire loop.
You'll hear us talking about that a lot.
They're a very common technique and jewelry making and you will definitely need a pair of round nose pliers
to make them.
Moving along, our third tool that you're going to need to have is a pair of chain nose pliers.
These come to a nice flat
tip. You just see it right here
and they're great for grabbing things. You can grab beads with them. You can use them like a
pair of tweezers. You'll also be able to grab a wire with them.
Hold the wire study. That's not gonna go anywhere.
You can bend wire.
They're great all around tool. You're definitely need a pair of these
when you begin your beading adventure.
The final tool is a pair of crimping pliers.
Crimping pliers are made exclusively to crimp tubes and crimp beads.
I want to show you real quick how to do that. We actually have a step-by-step
tutorial already for that in the Beadaholique.com's beading series.
I want to show you real quick.
Now you can imagine that this is a beaded strand and that you have perhaps a clasp
on the end.
Crimping pliers and crimp tubes and beads allows you don't have to make a knot or
any other type of
securing device.
You can see in the crimping plier you have two indentations. You have one
that's furthest back and when you crimp that together it has a kidney shape to it
and then the other one which is close to the tip
has almost oval shaped to it and it's a two part process.
Like I mentioned we do have a tutorial on this already which talks about how to do it step
by step.
I just want to really quickly show you how
simple and handy a pair of crimping pliers. So I put it in there
one closest back.
You see that this is loose right now.
When I crimp it down
that wires not going anywhere
and then you can get finishing touch
you put it in the indentation closest to the tip.
You squeeze that down.
Now you have a perfectly crimped bead.
Before we wrap up I wanna show you one more tool which is not necessarily a must have but it is definitely
a handy tool
and that is a bead stopper.
Very simple.
Just a coil. Pull it back.
Then what you can do is you can go ahead and insert the
end of your
beaded wire and it holds in place. So as you're stringing beads
they're not going to go anywhere. So this is not a must have but I definitely say it's a tool that
you might want to add to your beading
repertoire once you bought the basic tools that you need to begin with. It's just an easy
time saver and makes
beading a lot less frustrating too.
So I hope this video
helped to clear up some of the confusion about the tools that you need to start with. There's
a lot more tools out there. Many of them have very
exciting uses and once you find them you'll be delighted I know I have been as I found
tools such as
metal punches and others
but these are the ones you really need to start with
and so
in our next video what we're gonna do is we're gonna
pull together all the things we've learned thus far of our Learn to Bead video
series
such as the different types of beads, different findings, stringing materials and tools.
We're going to take that knowledge and we're going to make this bracelet.
So join us next time and have fun beading.
Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supplies needs!