Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supply needs!
Hi this is Megan with Beadaholique.com
and today I'm going to show you
how to use BeadSmith's Thing-A-Ma JIG
which is a wire wrapping jig.
This is the beginner kit that we sell. In the kit
you'll find everything you'll need
to start working with
this type of tool.
This
is the actual wire jig. It's got little holes in it
and then
it comes with an assortment of little plastic pegs that you fit into the holes.
It also comes with three
different colors of
craft wire.
Then it comes with instruction sheet and a little set of
templates
that you can use
to get started with.
The other tools that you'll need
are a pair of flush cutters
a pair of nylon,
chain nose pliers
and it can be handy to also have a pair of round nose pliers.
To start I'm going to show you
just how follow one of these templates that's here. It's a really good way to
practice
and then
you can go from there changing the size of your pegs
and the types and sizes of wire that you're using
to kind of come up with her own fun designs for components that you want to make.
So to follow
one of these templates
you can start
but putting the jig
over the template and lining up the black dots
with the holes in the jig.
Then you take
the little straight pegs, the ones that even on both sides.
You've put one
in each
hole over
the dark dot.
Then you take
a piece of wire.
When you're using flush cutters
there's the flat side of the flush cutters
and then the angle side of the flush cutter. That flat side is going to leave
what you cut
a nice blunt end. The other side will leave it kind of sharp and pointy. So it's a
good idea when you're cutting
off a spool of wire or roll of wire,
always use the flat side of against the spool so that's not sharp
when your having it
laying around.
The first step to use when you're working with a wire jig
is to make a loop
on the end to start around you're peg.
So just pinch the end of the wire with a pair of round nose pliers
and wrap
around
and move the pliers over
and
keep wrapping
until you have a circle.
Then you're going to take that loop and hang onto that. The next thing you
want to do
is straighten out the wire. You do that by running that
through the jaws of the nylon pliers.
Just run it through a few times
to straighten out any bends or kinks.
You can go ahead and
move your jig off of the instructions.
It shows you an example of what they have. It shows you the
the order and
direction in which to go. So when you're following a template you can
use that for reference
otherwise you can kind of experiment and play around whichever way
you want around there.
So you'll
place your loop over the peg.
That is what you want to use first.
Then you're just going to run
through the order on the template itself.
And just holding it
down so it doesn't pop up
off the pegs.
You just wrap it around.
You want to kind of
pull it a little further past then you need to so that it
keeps it's shapes when you let go.
You don't want the tention of it
being around the peg to be holding it in place.
You'd rather have it
wrap on its own and all the way to that direction.
So once you have it
wrapped around your last peg, go ahead and wrap it around to form a loop.
Then pull it
off the pegs.
You see it is
pretty three-dimensional at that point.
I'm going to flatten it in just a moment. First you're going to go ahead and trim it with flush
cutters.
And you want the flat side
of the flush cutters
to line up with
the edge of the loop that you're going to have that sit right inside.
Then take your nylon jaw pliers
and push your loop flat.
you're also going to go through
the rest of the piece
and just squeeze it
with the nylon jaw pliers and that will flatten out.
When you're using a really fine
gauge wire like the one that
comes with this kit
it will move around and you can just
move it back
to get it back into the shape if you want.
So that would be,
for this template that would be the result.
I've also pulled
a little piece of twenty gauge wire
because I want to show you
it can be a little bit easier
to work with something that's a little bit
thick and it doesn't bend out of shape so easily.
So you could make up
whatever pattern you want
With the different pegs.
You can use the different sized pegs. The larger pegs are going to give you a
larger loop.
So if you use
three little pegs and then one large peg it'a going give you a different
kind of shape.
You'll start
again with a loop that you
use to hook onto the first peg.
Straighten the piece of wire.
You can do a lot of experimenting with this.
If you have something in mind that you know you want to make then you can
kind of play around with
how you place the pegs and the order in which you wrap
the wire in order to achieve exactly the look that you're
hoping for.
I'm just kind of playing around
so I'm
happy to see what my results will be.
So you can just
wrap it around
and go
around that way
it's also sometimes
if you're doing a lot of wrapping over the same place it's helpful if you can
flip the wire over if it's a symmetrical design halfway through so that
your designed
lays flat on
the both sides
as opposed to getting really
tall off
the front.
You can see that the heavier gauge wire really holds it's shape a
little bit better.
So even just by playing around with the different
configurations that you can come up with
and trying it out. You can find some really interesting
shapes
and turn them in the components.
So you could use that
as a connector
or you could
hang a dangle from it.
You can kind of let your inmagination run wild.
It's a really good creative tool the wire jig
because it takes
something that you want to do in your design elements which would be
wrapping all this wire and it makes it really easy to do a nice clean even job.
So let's you
kind of make whatever you want but makes it look better without taking quite so
much time.
And that's how you use BeadSmith's Thing-A-Ma JIG.
Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supply needs!