Hi! This is Julie with Beadaholique.com and today I want to show you how to make your own
chain out of wire. So I have a chain here that I've made and this is on the
ambrosia necklace which is in
our free project section of Beadaholique.com's website
and I made my chain. I was doing all wire work and I really didn't want to put a
premade chain on it, I wanted to continue with the theme of all hand-made
components so I made my chain
I made my little
clasp
so I'm going to show you how to do this, it is so easy
a couple of the tools you need, well first off you need wire. I have twenty gauge
artistic wire here which is craft wire
I've got a bench block and a chasing hammer
I've got a couple different sizes of bail making pliers
I have to pair of flush cutters
and I have some chain nose pliers
I also have a ruler here to measure because one thing when you're making
your chain is you want all the links to be uniform
this is really quite easy to do. Put the necklace aside for right now
so I'm going to cut myself several one inch lengths
of wire
If you're doing a project for yourself you don't have to keep it to one inch
you can make it whatever you like
just laying the wire
against the ruler
and snipping
I got four pieces. That's going to make me four links
so what I'm going to do to make these
so I'm going to take my bail making pliers
you see there's two sizes. I'm going to use the smaller size for this particular project
I'm going to grasp the wire between the two noses
and I'm just going to bend around
that smaller nose
just like so
so now I want to do the other side and I want to bend in the opposite direction
in this particular design. So again I'm grasping it
bending
so there's a start of one link. I'm going to do this with all of my little sections
so grasping between
and you can either push the wire around the pliers themselves
or you can use the pliers
to do the work for you. So here I've got it going this way, this one I want to go
the opposite way
rotate my pliers
if I need to get a better grip I just move the pliers and adjust
I've got my links and if you cut your pieces to one inch they should all
be pretty uniform
see what that looks like
so now to make them a little bit more finished and polished I'm going to hammer
them with my chasing hammer
this is going to flatten them. It's going to work harden them and give a
really nice, professional touch to it
so it's going to tap it, hold it
carefully in place so it doesn't go flying
but I don't to hurt my finger of course
flatten it out
now if you're loops come apart you can go ahead
reinsert the smaller
head of your bail making pliers
twist it back around a little bit just to close it
I'm going to show you the difference between a flattened one
and a regular one
it just looks a little bit more polished. I'm going to do this to all of them
if any of those loops separated a little bit go back
tighten them up
we got four chain links that are identical
so to make these into a chain we're going to connect them with jump rings
I have a little four millimeter open jump ring right here
I'm grasping it with one of my chain nose pliers
on one side. Grasp it with
the other chain nose pliers on the other side
and twist open
link it through one of my loops
go ahead and you can either choose how you want this pattern to be, if you
want the loops to be facing
the same way like so
or if you want them
to face the opposite direction, totally up to you
just make sure you're consistent in whatever you choose
link that on so they're both linked together
to close our jump ring twist it back in place
and we have a start to a chain. Do that with the other ones as
well. Make sure that I pay attention to the orientation
I want this one
to go like that
this first one point goes this way, the other one went to the right, this one's going
to the left
you can really do what ever way you like
open up a jump ring
link them together
close the jump ring
and one more
this one will go to the right
and when I say the right I mean the bottom loop is
swirling to the right
I want that to go in
direction
just open another jump ring
and there
you have a chain
that we have made
so now we need to make a clasp. So that was how you do the chain as long as you
like
for the clasp in this particular project
it's gonna be two inches of wire that we need
so again lay it against the measuring
tape or ruler. Whatever you might have
Snip it off
I want to show you what we're making here
that is going to be our clasp
and to make this we are going to take
again the small part of our
bail making pliers. Grip it
rotate around, make a loop
and then in this instance we want both loops facing the same direction
and to make this nice curve which is going to take a larger bail making plier
first off we wanna make sure our loops are pretty even
twist it
curve around
and there we have our loop
for the other side we're going to the same
another two inches of wire
make two loops both facing the same direction
take your larger bail making plier
curve it around
and now we want to hammer these as well
go back, make sure that the loops are closed up
and in this case I wanted one to be open
at the hook and one to be more the eye. So I'm going to squish it together
with my fingers
like so
and now
these two can loop together
they make a pretty sleek clasp and to attach it to your chain you just
need another jump ring
open it up the same way
link it onto your chain
you got the start of a chain and you have a clasp
and this is a great way of finishing off the piece if you're doing a lot of wire work
and you want your chain to not only match exactly the color of the wire but also to have
custom components like the rest of your piece. Go to www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas!