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Okay! here are the materials we'll use to create a completely ravishing 14k 9mm faceted citrine choker. (Pardon my royal "we".) We can sell you all the tools and findings that you see in our tutorials, incidentally. But they may not all be on the website, so if you see something you want and isn't listed, drop us an email and we'll send you an invoice, or add it to any other order that you make. Now, let's look a little closer at these materials.
The bead stringing wire that you need for any fine work needs to be as flexible as possible, so get the smallest diameter of stringing wire that has the largest number of "strands" making up the thread. Here, that's Beadalon .38 mm 49-strand wire. Soft Flex is equally good. You can get 49-strand wire in larger diameters, supposedly for heavier work, with a break point greater than the 20 lbs this wire holds, which perhaps would be useful if you need to suspend an anvil from a window or something. Otherwise you're set.
Be aware that other beading wires you use will have different properties, mainly affecting the way they crimp. Some colored beading wire, for example, is really slippery. It may look secure, but still come loose after being crimped. Always test your finishing techniques to make sure they're really working with the materials you're using.
Also known as French Bullion, or Gimp, this is a very soft hollow tiny coil of wire that is usually used to cover and protect the silk thread of a knotted strand where it meets the clasp. We're going to be using it a little less traditionally. You can get it in both gold and silver, and often in three sizes. You'll want it in small, whether you're using it the way we do here, or for knotting.
"Attached Rings" is the operative phase here. In 14k using gimp, it's very convenient not to have to rig up a clasping system. Clasps that have attached closed (already soldered) rings may include fishhook clasps, also called pearl clasps, bead clasps, and box clasps. When finishing with gimp and 14k, the advantages of using a clasp with rings already attached, instead of, say, a lobster claw clasp, are many. I find I can't really support this statement without going into detail that you wouldn't be able to visualize without pictures, and I don't have any. I'm not saying it can't be done, now. I'm just saying this way is more time efficient and looks more professional. So trust me. Or doubt me, try something else, and suffer.
This is a box clasp. So named not for it's shape, but because there's a folded piece of rectangular metal that slides into a "box" to make the clasp work. Wouldn't it have been great if I had taken a picture of that?
When buying your crimps, you'll might find a couple of different lengths to choose from. That's a matter of taste and won't effect how they work. Most crimps are about the same diameter, around 2mm. The most important thing to look for in a 14k crimp is how heavy the wall is. 14k crimps work differently than other crimps, better, but if you get too light of a crimp, the flexibility of the metal can be so great that it won't hold a crimp at all. The crimp will will open up completely with the slightest movement of the wire. You'll know right away if you got the wrong kind of 14k crimp, because you won't even be able to finish stringing your beads. Not even, like, two of them. They hold, literally, nothing. I don't know why people sell those things. They're unusable.
But don't let that deter you from using the right 14k crimps. They're a completely different experience.
Here's where I have to interject a health warning. Sigh. Beading can be dangerous. Not in any way I can actually imagine, but, well, maybe the anvil scenario, or if you strung wire across the bottom of a doorframe. Don't eat beads or stuff them up your nose. Try to cut the wire and not your fingers. Etc. The only serious warning I might offer is to always watch out for shrapnel. This is actually more of a concern with wire wrapping, but if you get bollixed up and accidentally end up flinging your beads across the room, anything could happen. You might put an eye out, or scare your cats. You could break a window and a flying piece of glass might sever an artery. If there is often a lot of flying debris in your workroom, wear safety glasses.
As you've guessed, we're not really all that tenderly concerned for your health. What we're really saying is that we are not responsible for the injuries you may inflict upon yourself in pursuit of learning a craft. We don't even feel that we're responsible for our own. We follow our own advice and still manage to get boo-boos all the time, so be forewarned.
Make sure you read the above safety warnings first.
It really doesn't matter what you cut the bead wire with, obviously, but if you use the same cutter you use for thread and French wire, eventually the beading wire will make microscopic dings in your cutter, and the French Wire and thread cuts will start coming out ragged. So if you're going to be doing a lot of this get separate cutters for each job.
For a moment, let us switch, confusingly, to a sterling clasp, sterling tube crimp, and red coral.
Here you see a basic crimp assembly, without French Wire. The wire goes through the ring and back through the crimp. Now we're going to use crimping pliers to crimp it. You could also smash it flat with regular pliers, but that's pretty crude, don't you think?
First we'll make a crimp with this part of the pliers. This part of the pliers will create two channels for the wire.
Then we'll push the two channels together, rounding the crimp back into a tube shape, with this part of the pliers. This makes a sterling or base metal crimp more secure. Sterling and base metal are both brittle enough that the indentation of the crimp could actually crack, if pressed hard enough, so it's best that the indentation is toward the inside.
You'll skip this step with the 14k crimp.
Here are the pliers in action, and the results, showing the beading wire encased in two channels, before the crimp is rounded back into a tube form.
Will the clasp be less secure if the wire doesn't end up in two channels? It depends on the kind of wire you're using and the way it ends up inside the crimp. If it prevents the crimp from being sufficiently crimped around it, there may be wiggle room for the wire to come loose. If you're not sure, and don't want to restring, nip the indentation of the crimp in a little closer with the flat part of the pliers.
What kind of crimping pliers should you buy? There are two types, regular and micro. I recommend the micro. Most tube crimps are too small to be effectively crimped by regular crimping pliers.
Some gem beads have very very small holes. This is not so with the faceted citrine, but we're going to bend the wire back through the first and last bead, so that it has two widths of bead wire through it, and often you'll need to enlarge the hole of a gem bead, such as this 4mm red coral bead. For this you'll need a high-speed minature drill bit, as for a Foredom or Dremel, somewhere between a 68-80 gauge. The higher the gauge, the more slender diameter of the bit.
Yes, the drill bit in the photo is broken. And yes, I am still using it. I am so ashamed.
You can learn to ream beads with a motorized tool, but if you do that you definitely will have shrapnel. It will happen. That's how this drill bit was broken. The drill bit, impaled in a bead, got stuck, and flung itself out of my fingers and directly at my face at high speed, since I was looking at the bead at the time. Although apparently not closely enough.
I like these handy-dandy little hand drill sets. They come with an interior vial of several sizes of drill bits. And hey, check out the cool pen clip on the side. You can also clip this little beauty to a pocket on your shirt and wear it as a fashion accessory!
Here are my Xuron Tweezer Pliers. I love my Xuron Tweezer Pliers. They're a narrow flat-nosed plier with a softer jaw which is great for using on beading wire, which can sometimes be bent or smashed flat by heavier pliers. And they get into tiny places, which is a always beneficial when doing fine beading. We're going to use them to help thread the end of the wire back through the coral bead.
Why is threading the wire back through the first bead necessary? Because if you cut it off right after the crimp, it's more likely to pull out, so it's not secure. And it also looks like crap. It will also leave a visible wire, and the crimp will sit on the bead at an angle. That's-a no good.
First you coax the end of the beading wire back into the hole of the coral bead by gently holding the the wires with the tweezer pliers about an eighth of an inch away from the bead on the clasp side, and push-pulling till the end gets through.
Then you grasp the wires from the other end and slide the bead up to the clasp.
Cut the straggle-end of the bead wire off as close to the bead as possible. You'll do this on the other end when all the beads are strung, too, of course. Here we're using a cheapo flush cutter. There is more info about flush cutters in the earring wire-wrap tutorial.
The first photograph gives you an idea of how much French wire you will need in comparison to the size of a crimp. This is about twice what you would normally use to cover silk, by the way. The second photograph shows an arrow pointing to the correct width of French Wire. The wider French wire below it will bunch up and look awful with the narrow beading wire we're using.
Here's the basic assemblage for attaching the 14k clasp. The arrows show where the French Wire is on the beading wire. The French Wire is almost the same width as the beading wire. That's the way it should be. Stringing the small size French Wire on the beading wire is a little like threading a needle, and takes about the same amount of patience. Once the interior of the delicate French Wire is filled snugly with the flexible wire, it is very durable.
Pull the beading wire end until the French Wire pulls around to make a perfect, small loop. If it's too loose, the French wire will slide back and forth on the wire. If it's too tight, it will kink and loops will pop out to counter the strain. It's not tough to get the tension right, however.
You crimp the clasp in the same way as you do the sterling clasp, but you skip the rounding step. 14k will never break at the crimp seam, but if you try to round it, it is flexible enough that it will open up again rather than fold over. The finished crimp is strong and will last through anything. The 14k retains it's polish well through the crimping process, too.
Here's the finished crimp showing the channel side and then the rounded side. This finish is more pleasing with the French Wire than if the crimp were rounded back into a tube shape. These photos are gargantuan compared to the very small things we're actually working with, so it's not as easy to tell, but the two ends of the French wire running into the two channels of the crimp almost look like one assembly when done correctly. It's much more attractive than if the two ends of the French Wire appears to be squeezed back into a tube-shaped crimp.
Cut the end of the wire as close to the bottom of the bead as possible. Don't string the wire back through more than one bead; it doesn't make the clasp assemblage any stronger and it leaves a longer tail to potentially slip out from between two beads.
Working with 14k beads is a little different than working with base metal or sterling. All 14k beads can dent if banged around aggressively, although they're really pretty tough. To keep 14k beads affordable, they will be lighter, than other beads, which means that the walls will be thinner and the edges will be sharper. They can cut silk if they're not well balanced on the strand. And they can be cut by wire if they're not balanced. An unbalanced bead is one that falls so that the wire is not running through the center of the hole anymore, but rubbing against the top of the bead hole. This is more of a danger with larger beads than smaller. Take steps to balance your 14k beads and you won't have to worry about it. Just a few 14k spacer beads really brighten a design. And they add a nice element that can be carried to a matching pair of earrings, as well.
The 3mm 14k round bright bead is a reliable and affordable standby as a spacer and works with lots of different bead types and sizes. This is because they are small enough that they are actually cupped by the drill holes in the bead. This is visible in the photo. Because they are light, they are also less likely to get in a position that could damage them. For tiny gem beads, 2mm round bright 14k beads will work in the same way.
There are lots of different ways to stabilize heavier 14k beads, depending on the materials you're using and what they offer you for design potential. Here a large corrugated 14k bead is stabilized between two 3mm 14k beads.
Another excellent choice is a rondel bead, either smooth or corrugated. The rondel spacer cups the bead on either side, a good way to to achieve stabilization. Corrugated beads are a little tougher than bright beads, too, because the more metal is worked, such as making the accordian pleats in this corrugated bead, the stiffer and harder it gets.
But we're going to use these pretty little Bali 14K rondels. They're very stable on the strand because their hole is so small there's really no way for them to get out of balance enough so they'd start to rub.
Finishing the strand is the most critical part of this whole operation. Of course, you string back through the last bead in the same way you strung through the first bead.
The most common problem with wire stringing is too much slack in the wire. If you're stringing a tiny gem bead, like the coral, then it may be hard to get the wire back through the bead, but it will be easier to take the slack out of the necklace because that tight little bead will hold the whole assemblage in place for you while you crimp.
With the faceted citrine beads, the hole is relatively large, which makes it easier to string the wire through, but it's going to be harder to make sure you have the right amount of slack out of the wire, since it will slip around a lot.
To do take the slack out, you have to use gravity. That is, you have to hold the entire strand off the table and see how much slack there is left. Then put it back on the table, adjust it, then hold it up again. Repeat this process until you're satisfied that it's correct, and then make sure when you return the work to the table to crimp it that you don't end up adding slack again. This might sound simple but it can be very frustrating. To encourage you, and maybe save you at least one wasted work session, I will illustrate why it is important.
This photograph is the end of the entire strand of beads. It's laying on the table and I've pushed the beads back as far as they will go. The slack shows up between the first bead and the second, where the wire exits, as shown by the arrow.
In this photograph, what I've done is pick the strand up from the table and held it in place so that the end bead hasn't moved. I'm holding it up far enough so that all the beads are off the table, and this reveals how much actual slack there is in the strand. Had I clasped that strand before using gravity on it, the clasp would go right where my lovely fingers are in the photo. All of that wire would be visible! The whole thing would be ruined! AIEEE!
Every time you adjust the tension in the necklace so that it's tighter, you need to remember to do it gently, so that that the French Wire is not overly disturbed.
Once you trim the end of the wire, you will immediately have more slack in the necklace. Don't panic, you do need to have some slack so that it will remain supple, so you do need to see, on close deliberate inspection, a tiny bit of wire between two beads when you move them apart. You don't want "the lie" of the necklaces to be stiff. Necklaces are worn resting on the shoulders, hopefully never hung from a doorknob or anything like that, and in that natural state no one will ever notice the wire. And it will not stretch out the way knotted silk inevitably will. (Not that I don't love to knot. I'm just sayin'.)
Eventually you'll get so that you can actually adjust the tension while holding the strand above the table. That is a little like throwing pizza dough, though, and at first you'll probably have enough of a challenge keeping the everything from coming loose and all the beads from falling onto the table.
Very long bead strands are harder to get the slack out of because it's harder to hold all the beads off the table. To counteract this, depending on the beads you're using, you can sometimes slip a knot down the bead wire as you work with a bead awl, so that the when you get to the end of the strand all the beads are already snug except for the last few inches. Any multi-strand bead wire knots very well. Just make sure the knots are not visible, and that you actually get them snug against the bead, because if you have to undo the knot because it's in the wrong place, you'll find your bead wire is unalterably twisty, and you'll have to remove the clasp and start all over again.
Read the next tutorial to learn how to make the matching earrings.
There aren't a lot of designer necklaces available in 14k, and every woman you meet will have an idea for one. Learn this technique and you'll never go hungry. It will easily pay for your own bead excesses, as well. In fact, if you're like us, you may have to find a way to pay for your own bead excesses at some point. And we can't keep up with the demand for custom stringing, so you might as well wade on in.
Come on, now. You know you want to.
