How to Make a Hook and Bar Clasp with Craft Wire

	Artistic Wire, Silver Plated Craft Wire 18 Gauge Thick, Tarnish Resistant Silver (4 Yard Spool) SKU: WCR-1830 $6.99
	The Beadsmith Jewelry Fine Round Nose Micro Pliers SKU: XTL-5514 $8.49
	Xuron Jeweler's Super Fine Pliers Chain Nose Flat Nose SKU: XTL-5450 $25.99
	Eurotool Nylon Jaw Pliers Chain Nose- For Scratch-Free Wire Work SKU: XTL-0074 $14.49
	Sharp Flush Cutter Pliers - For Cutting Beading Wire (1 Piece) SKU: XTL-5600 $23.99
	Wubbers Bail Making Jewelry Pliers - Medium 3mm & 5mm Size SKU: XTL-0031 $29.99
	Beadalon Large Beading Mats - Prevent Bead Rolling 13 X 18 Inch (Set of 2) SKU: XTL-9935 $6.75

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi this Megan with Beadaholique.com and today I'm going to show you how to make a Hook and Bar Clasp using craft wire so this bracelet has a clasp on it. I'm gonna show you how to make. You can see that this side has the little bar just connected with jump rings and this side has this wide hook and you could use a similar process to make a narrow hook and eye. I'm just gonna show you how to do it a little bit wider for when you're doing a wider bracelet but if you just made it narrow it would be almost the same process exactly and we do have another video on how to make this bracelet link and they'll be a project on the Beadaholique.com free beading project bracelet section on how to do the whole thing. If you are wanting to learn how to do the bracelet you could check there for that okay so what we're gonna need is some eighteen gauge craft wire and then we'll need a flush cutters round nose pliers I'm using a Wubbers bail making pliers and I have always wanna have nylon jaw pliers for straightening out my wire Go ahead and cut some wire the cut one piece about sixty or seven inches long and one piece about four or five inches long and to straighten your wire you can use your round nose pliers to make a loop at the end to hold onto or you can just use a pair of chain nose pliers to hold onto your wire you want to use nylon jaw pliers to straighten out your wire so in this clasp go ahead end start what the hook and I'm going to use my longer piece of wire and you can see that I have definite bends here at the corners but they're not a hard corner. I used round nose pliers to make that instead of using a chain nose plier I'm gonna start just a little bit over from the center and I'm going to put my wire pretty close to the tip of your round nose so that it is a pretty good solid corner but it won't get a hard bend in it because using your round nose pliers so go ahead bring it in a little bit more then at a right angle it actually come in a little bit. I have it do that shape so that it fits comfortably inside here that it won't slide out just go ahead and take your round nose pliers, put them into the corner and pull it back a little bit push in and push out. Kind of a graduate increase right here so that it kind of goes down and dips down at the end and then decide how wide you want your bar to be and just do the same thing on the other side there and you can make this as narrower or as wide as you want. What's going to make the difference is making sure that you make both pieces to fit each other the tip right there now you're going to use your Wubbers and I have the medium size here I'm going to use the smaller side what I've been doing is get this nice even fold in my hook so take the hook put it about an eight of an inch is sticking up above and then I'm going to fold it around the smaller side of the Wubbers you can kind of straight out after you get it it will have a nice even bend here. You just need to straighten the ends Now you can see it's almost done. All we need to do is makes the little loops that attach your clasp to your piece of jewelry All I'm going to do is take your round nose pliers and grab the clasp just a bit past the bottom of the hook and maybe about an quarter of an inch down the plier and then just bend the excess wire all the way around take your flush cutters turn trim that off take your nylon jaw pliers and just squeeze so that it lays flat just repeat see the thing on the other side If it opens up a little bit when you flatten it out just squish it back close so that's your hook then we need to make the bar and we want to make sure that it fits with the hook so you take the other piece of wire that you already straightened near to the center but just off to one side you're gonna make a nice right angle bend with you round nose pliers your clasp will sit like this in here and you'd think that you wanna bend it here but you want to actually make sure that it's going to be big enough to fit the wider part at the tip you wanna make it just a tiny bit bigger than the wider part it's okay if it's not a lot bigger because you can put it in at an angle and that will keep it more secure but just a little bit bigger so just take a measurement bend it try it this is kind of big so I'm actually going to make it smaller and that's fine. You can do trial and error. You can adjust it and I'm going to use nylon jaw pliers to straighten that back out a little bit that'll be a trial and error that will got a lot easier once you've done it a few times go ahead say that that's a pretty good fit. You want to make sure if it's shallow that it's going to be big enough to get in there you won't have a lot of room for making it fit work with it until it seems like it's a nice fit I'm going to go and go with that now all you're gonna do is make the loops to connect your bar Again really easy grab it with your round nose pliers you wanna start a little bit down from the end so that it's not completely shallow, you want to give a little bit of room for the actual bar and then just wrap the wire around your round nose pliers trim it with your flush cutters flatten that out and do the same thing on the other side and then one thing that you can do once you have your pieces and you have them the exact shape that you want make sure that they work of course that they fit together that's what your clasp looks like one way to harden your wire a little bit and make this a little bit more secure just take your nylon jaw pliers and just squish it over and over and over an over and the nylon jaws aren't going to damage the wire they're not going to flatten this like if you hammered it they're not really gonna change the look but that compression on there is going to harden the wire a little bit just to make it a little bit more durable and it doesn't take that much go ahead and do that on the whole bar and you can do it on the parts of the hook that you can get it in. It's not a really flimsy wire so it's not gonna fall flat when you use it otherwise but it does help a little bit and that's how you make a Hook and Bar Clasp and you san do the same thing with a narrow set to make a Hook and Bar Clasp out of craft wire