Hi there. Welcome to another Friday Findings video. Today I thought I would get back to
some basics and talk to you in detail about simple loops.
Now loops are what we use to hold much of our jewelry together. And a simple loop is
just that; it's just a simple loop in the piece of wire that holds pieces together.
If you have a bead that's on a head pin and it has a loop, then this is a bead dangle.
And if you have a bead or beads that are on piece of wire with a loop on each end, then
that's a bead link. And these, like I said, are just simple loops as opposed to a wrapped
loop where you can see excess wire was wrapped around the loop so it's very secure.
So let me first of all show you how to make a simple loop. And of course, you need some wire or
you need a head pin which is basically wire with something decorative on one end. You'll
need for tools round nose pliers to make your loop nice and round, chain nose pliers, and
wire cutters. That's all you need. To make a simple loop, the first thing you
need to do is to decide the size that you want your loop and a good average size is
2mm. If you are going to make them smaller or larger, you will need to adjust the size.
But for 2mm I am going to trim my wire to 3/8th of an inch from where it comes out of
the bead. Use flush cutters and have the flush cutting side towards the wire that you are
going to keep. Now, if you want to make consistent loops
you can use a sharpie to mark on your round nose pliers just exactly where they are 2mm
in diameter. And like I said if you are going to make smaller loops you would make this
wire shorter and if you are going to make them wider you would make this wire longer.
So the way to hold your round nose pliers is in your hand, just like this, with your
palm facing up. And then, place your wire right in the jaws of the round nose pliers
and feel over it with one of your fingers. That wire should be just at the edge of the
jaws. You shouldn't feel any, like there it is sticking
out; so I'm going to scoot it back down; you shouldn't feel any. Then you squeeze your
round nose pliers so they hold on to the wire and then just twist your wrist towards you.
Now loosen slightly on the pliers, go back, and twist again.
Once you have your loop made, you can see that that's not particularly nice looking; it's
off center and kind of wonky. So, what we need to do to fix that is just grab the side
of the loop that's coming out of the bead and bend it back to the other side.
And what this will do, it will open up your loop a little bit and it will center it over
your bead and then you may have to go back and forth a few times. Close it, re-center
it. It can be a little tough when you have a big bulky bead in the way. But there you
go, that is a simple loop. Now it is important to note the size of the
wire that you are using when making simple loops because the strength of this wire is
the only thing that is keeping your jewelry together so you definitely need to use
heavier gauge wire. The wire in this headpin is 20 gauge. I wouldn't
go any smaller than 22 gauge wire. Here's some 22 gauge wire and you can see I've made
a loop out of that. And let me just tug on this 20 gauge one with the pliers.
So pretend you've got this on a bracelet; you've got lots of dangles on a bracelet and
it's caught on something. This is pretty strong; I am tugging on this. I am exerting a bit
of force and it's not going anywhere. Now the 22 gauge wire, it's pretty well holding.
You can see it's opened up maybe just a little bit with the force, but 22 is pretty strong.
But then here is 24 gauge wire, look at that. If you were to make a bracelet with some dangles
that were out of 24 gauge wire, you would be in danger of losing them if they ever got
caught on something. Bracelets tends to get beat up a bit.
So if you need to use anything less than 22 gauge wire for your jewelry, perhaps it is
only the size that will fit through the holes of your beads, then you need to be making
wrapped loops and not simple loops to be sure that your jewelry is secure.
And I thought I would show you just one more way you can make simple loops and that's with
this tool. This is called the One-Step Looper and all it does is make one size 1.5mm simple
loops and that's it. I have done a Friday Findings video telling
you all about this tool but I will just show you really quick what it does. It does one
thing and it does it well. You just stick your wire in and there you go. You might have to fiddle
with it a little bit but you have a very quick simple loop.
So I hope you found this video helpful in knowing which loops to use for which wire
gauges in your jewelry to make sure that it's secure as possible.
If you like this video, please make sure you've subscribed to my YouTube channel so you will
see more like it. And also check out my blog, KeepsakeCrafts.net. And up on the screen are
a couple more jewelry making videos you just might enjoy.
Thanks so much for watching. Happy creating. Bye-bye.