Hi there, Sandy here.
Welcome to another Friday Findings video at KeepsakeCrafts.net.
Have you ever been just about ready to finish a project, but you needed a custom bail for
your polymer clay or jewelry piece and you either had to go out to the store and buy
one or wait for an order to come online?
Well, today I'm going to show you how you can take just a little bit of wire and make
your own custom bails for pendants, not only for polymer clay, but also for your regular
jewelry pieces.
So this is a fun little project that is so versatile and has so many different possibilities.
This is just a slice of a polymer clay cane that I used as an example.
I probably wouldn't use just this slice as a pendant, but it serves the demonstration
purposes for today.
And all I've done is made a coil of wire and then embedded it in the clay.
Now one of my favorite tricks when doing a project like this with polymer clay, if it's
possible with the thickness of the clay, go ahead and take chain nose pliers and add a
little hook to the end of the wire and this means when the clay is baked that it's not
going to be able to pull apart.
I'm using 20 gauge wire here today, but you can use whatever thickness you want.
I probably wouldn't use anything thinner than 20 gauge.
Here's one I made with 16 gauge copper wire and it's quite heavy and it really has a very
different look than the 20 gauge one.
So it really depends on the proportions and look and style that you want.
The 20 gauge is easy to work with and here I have about 6" and you do want to go ahead
and just straighten out your wire.
You'll get a nicer coil if your wire is straight to begin with, and then I'm using my bail
making pliers.
These have 5, 7 and 10mm mandrels.
So if you know you're going to use a very thick kumihimo cord or a beaded cord for your
necklace, then you might want to go with the 10 or the 7mm mandrels.
It's really up to you.
Go ahead and put your wire in your mandrel like this.
This will give you the greatest control and visibility.
Bring your wire down so it's right next to that little bit of wire that's sticking out
and then just open the pliers, twist and close and just keep doing that.
Opening and twisting and making sure that your coil wire lays right next to that one.
Now when you get around to the piece that's sticking out you'll have to reposition it.
And that's all you do and by doing it this way you get a nice, neat coil.
Of course if you want this to be longer then you might just start with a longer piece of
wire and you can make your bail as wide as suits your project.
Now we're coming towards the end and you want to finish up with the wires pointing in opposite
directions.
Go ahead and leave your coil in the pliers.
Take your chain nose pliers and you're going to grab those wires and give them a 90 degree
bend up from the coil.
Now since my mandrel's in the way, I'm just going to flip this around to do the other
side.
Try to grab that and bend it at the same spot and then you can take a little time with your
pliers or your fingers to straighten it out and these two wires should end up on the same
plane.
Then you can trim them both to whatever length suits your project, about 1/2".
Now here I have another piece of polymer clay cane.
This looks cloudy, but has a lot of translucent.
It will actually bake up really pretty.
So I'm going to make my hooks go this way because my piece of clay is kind of thin.
I don't want the hooks facing this way because it would be easier for them to break through
my piece of clay.
And it doesn't really matter.
They don't have to be neat.
They don't have to be even because these are going to be what's buried inside your clay.
And I wouldn't recommend starting this with a knife because if you do that, you kind of
counteract the effect that you get of the clay being around the hooks.
So just move nice and slow and gently and the cane is a little old and it's cracking,
but I can seal it back up.
I didn't center that very well.
I would take a little time to use some clay shapers and smooth that out and make that
just the way I want it to be, but you get the idea.
And there you have a bail custom made for your clay.
Now if you don't want to do clay pieces, if you want to make a bail for some other kind
of pendant, you could always use round nose pliers.
I didn't bring mine with me, but let's pretend these are round nose pliers and take these
loops, these little ends.
This time you would cut them evenly, make them neat and then make loops down here.
Of course make them much more neatly than this and then you can hang any other kind
of pendant.
Here's the one I made earlier with 16 gauge wire and this is so heavy that unless I had
a really chunky clay piece, I probably wouldn't bother putting loops on this.
I would probably push this into the clay piece and then once it was done baking, pull it
out and add some strong glue like Lisa Pavelka's poly bonder.
I do prefer a mechanical connection like the hooks to glue, but sometimes like I said,
this is so thick and a hook would be really thick and could very much distort your clay
piece.
And then here's a fun variation.
I think this is my favorite of all of them.
I just took about an 8" piece of wire, held my mandrel open and just started doing messy
wraps.
I think I like this look best of all really.
And then just pay attention to where you're going in the end because again you want to
get back so that you can make these wires come down right below the center of the bail.
You might put a little more thought into it, but you get the idea.
You can have a very cool looking bail, very unique and if you made this out of bare copper
or a sterling silver or silver filled wire, you could then add a patina so it would be
dark in the crevices.
So I hope this gives you some ideas for making the findings on your jewelry unique.
If you're interested in some of the tools and supplies I used like the bail making pliers
or the wire, you should click on the link in the description box to go to my blog post
where I have a complete supply list and links to the products.
Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and take a look at my Patreon page for how
you can get great rewards and help support these tutorials.
Happy creating.
Bye bye.