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Hi this is Julie for Beadaholique.com. Today I'm going to show you how to make a
custom made clasp. It's a hook and eye clasp. In this bracelet here you'll also see the herringbone
wrap. Which is a wire wrapping technique which you can see in another video by beadaholique.com
I needed something to finish the bracelet and none of my clasps were
working right so I decided to make one myself. Now I want to show you how to do it.
It's really simple. It's a hook
with a little flourish on the end
and then we just have a round eye.
To do this you're going to need
a chasing hammer and a steel bench block.
You'l need some eighteen gauge craft wire. Any wire will work. If you want to be using
silver filled or
a different color wire by all means use that. Eighteen gauge is a good gauge
though for this project.
You'll need some round nose pliers,
flush cutters,
flat nose pliers. So to begin I going to go ahead and
cut about
five inches of the eighteen gauge wire.
You're not going to using all of this but I like to have a little bit more
rather than get stuck and not have enough.
So to begin we're gonna make the hook part
and what we want to do is
right about
an inch and a half, two inches from the tail. We're going to make a wrapped wire loop.
Really simple to do.
I'm going to push the wire up and over the round nose.
I'm just going to kink it back
so it's straight.
Then take my flat nose
hold it into place and I'm gonna
make several
tight wraps.
I'm going to do that
three times.
This is going to be the part which connects to your necklace or bracelet.
Going to take my flush cutters, snip off the end. You can tell that kind of sticks out
a little bit so I'm just going to take
my pliers and push it in.
So we have a nice finished work.
Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut my
other tail end so that I have
about
and an inch and a forth, an inch and a half
of wire.
Snip that off.
Now in the orientation
so that my
loop I just created is going to go in the same direction of the one I want to
create now.
I'm going to take the tip
of my wire end then I'm gonna put it in the tip of my
round nose pliers so I'm going to create a smaller little loop
and I'm going to going ahead
and just bend it over.
So I've got this little decorative flourish.
Now what I want to do is I wanna use the wider part
of my wide nose pliers
I'm going to stick
about the halfway point. I want it to be a little bit
more wire towards the base loop, a little less wire towards my little
flourish
and I'm just going to
bend
this over now
like so.
I'm going to try to straighten that out just a little bit It is wire so it will work with you. Don't
be afraid to bend it.
To finish it off
I'm going to put it on the edge of my steel bench block and I'm just gonna
hammer the top part.
So right there we have the hook part to our clasp
and now we just have to make
the eye.
To do that
I'm going to take another four or five inches of wire.
I'm going to do the
same process as did with the hook part. I'm just going to create
a wrapped wire loop.
When I'm working a heavier gauge wire I really like to get a
firm grip on my loop and that's why I use my flat nose pliers so much.
If you're working with a thinner gauge wire you can usually just finish off the
wrapping while holding it with your round nose pliers.
Total personal preference. Whatever works best for you.
So I just did out one and a half loops. And I'm going to cut that
tail end.
Press it in.
Now what I want to do is create
the larger part which is going to be the eye part.
I'm just going to go to about here
my round nose pliers are right up against the wrapping I just did.
Now I'm gonna
put this towards the back so I get a much larger loop.
Wrap it around.
Straighten it out.
And grasp it.
I'm going to wrap my tail until it meets my previous wrappings. So I get a nice
complete look there.
Trim off the excess.
Press in.
If you have any straightening out to do, always
help form it with your
pliers. I'm going to put this now on my bench block.
I'm going to hold it against the edge because if I do it like this, it's going to contort it
because this is raised up.
So I just want to hold it against the edge.
And there we go.
There you have an easy to make hook and eye clasp.
Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supply needs!