How to Make a Wire Wrapped Setting Using a Wire Jig

	Thing-A-Ma JIG Clear Acrylic Jewelry Wire Wrapping Tool SKU: XTL-6065 $8.99
	Sharp Flush Cutter Pliers - For Cutting Beading Wire (1 Piece) SKU: XTL-5600 $23.99
	Eurotool Nylon Jaw Pliers Chain Nose- For Scratch-Free Wire Work SKU: XTL-0074 $14.49
	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
	Standard Size Beading Crimping Pliers (For 2x2mm & 2x1mm Crimp Beads) SKU: XTL-5200 $14.49
	Beadalon Large Beading Mats - Prevent Bead Rolling 13 X 18 Inch (Set of 2) SKU: XTL-9935 $6.75
	E6000 Industrial Strength Glue Adhesive (1/2 Oz) SKU: XTL-1053 $5.69

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi this is Megan with Beadaholique.com and I want to show you how to make a wire wrapped setting for a chaton using a wire jig. So what this is going to do is make a setting just a simple wire wrap back-and-forth kind of zig zag setting. You can use the sides of the setting to attach the chaton to any other kind of wire strand or other piece of hardware. So what we're going to use is a wire jig. This is a Thing-A-Ma Jig. It's a very inexpensive tool so it's a good starting tool. It's great if you're going to try this out if you're not going to use it very often. There are quite a number of tools different wire jigs available so you can pick the one that you want to work with. We're also going to use some craft wire. I have some artistic wire. I'm using 24 gauge. I've tried this with a few different gauges and if you get too thick of a gauge it gets really hard to work with it. So don't go too thin. It is going to be soft and you can definitely use some glue to stabilize this to keep it more sturdy. In fact I would recommend that anyway. You're not relying entirely on the strength of the wire. So twenty four is going to work really well. It looks nice. You'll also need a crimp tube or crimp bead and it just needs to be big enough to fit two strands of your wire through it because that is how you connect your wire together. So on your wire jig insert your pegs so that you have a row and a row and that they are offset by one. You don't want them to be straight up-and-down you do you want to form little triangles. There will be some guesswork involved with how far a apart you set them and for how deep it goes on your chitin. So how long you need to go in order to go around but you can just play around with it and see. Go ahead and cut a piece of craft wire. Now you want to straighten it out with a pair of nylon jaw pliers. You're just running it through a few times. Just get out any serious bends. And then anytime you're using a wire jig it's easiest if you start with the loop. So just take a pair of round nose pliers to create a little loop at the end of your wire. Place the loop on the first peg and then you're gonna go back-and-forth and make sure that you're bending your wire little further over then it needs to go so thats stays otherwise when you pull it will pop out and not to keep its shape. Go back-and-forth and make a little zigzag pattern like that around the ends between each and hold it down as you work so that it doesn't popped up off the top of the pegs. You want to use your free hand to pull the wire a little further down the peg. Using the jig for this will help you have a nice even piece of wire. You can use pliers to do this but I like the uniformity that you get when you use the jig. When you come back from last one we're not going to end this with a loop. Just pull it to where you get like a nice right angle and then take your piece off the jig. Just that flatten out a little bit. You can just use your nylon jaw pliers. And you want to have a nice flat piece. Now you're only going to need a little bit like a quarter of an inch past the bend. Go ahead and cut it a little longer maybe three eighths. And then you'll need a nice sharp corner because you're gonna put a bend in this. So if you're using a wig jig it has sharp corners. If whatever jig your using has sharp corners you can use that. Otherwise you can use the of the table. As long as its not a bevel edge. You just want a sharp corner. You're just going to take your piece and put it right up against the edge of the table right with the corner in the middle press it down to put a bend in it. So that your piece should have a nice ninety degree bend right about in the middle. Then you're going to take your loop here and straighten it out so that you have a bent piece on both ends. You want this curve coming up from there but you don't want the rest of it to be looped. So just take your round nose pliers and unbend it and then kind of squish it around with the nylon jaw pliers until it's pretty flat. Then you're going to take your chaton and you're going to wrap your wire around to form a circle. You want to be able to space out the little loops to around it pretty comfortably. If you are only getting part of the way around the circle you might want to use more pegs and make a longer piece. If you're all the way around the circle you might just want to trim it and not use the whole thing. That's pretty good once you stretch and link the last two together. I think that's gonna fit nicely. So go ahead and put your chitin aside. What you need to do is you have these two bent ends here. What we're going to want to do is overlap them so that they can be one link bends around the back of the chaton. So take a crimp tube or crimp bead and go ahead and put it onto one of them and then you're gonna want to bend the other one a little bit flatter so that we can get it in there. Then you're going to take the crimp tube right to the middle where both of these bend to start to go into the curve. And then use a crimp tool to crimp that crimp tube. Get that nice and secure so that the ends don't go anywhere. Then use a pair of flush cutter to cut off the excess right next to the crimp tube. Then take you're round nose pliers and hold them up against you crimp tube there. You're going to want to put bend back in that part of your wire. Since it kind of went a little straight you can use your fingers too. This wire is not that hard. The ends might look a little jumbled up but when you put them back on your chaton it will straighten out. So slide you chaton back into place. You want to even out the loops. Just kind of use your fingers to pull them around until they're spaced evenly. Then hold the crystal back toward the back and just press down on the loops. Once they're pressed down you can go back in and even them out a little bit more until they're spaced around evenly. And that's the basic setting. You can see it's just wrapped around the front and back. You can use silver, copper, brass, gold I think it looks really nice if you have a plain colored chitin to use a bright color of the craft wire because it really pops. All you do to attach this onto a ring or wire just gently open up a couple of the prongs, slide your wire in and then bend it back down. You do want to try to get it as secure as possible. As I say you want to use a little bit of E6000 if you're gonna put it on something and you want to make sure that it's secure. This will move around as it is quite a bit. So just put the glue on the back of your chaton and try to get it right onto the back of whatever you're mounting it onto. Just a little bit will go a long way and it will hold it in place nicely. That's how you make a wire wrapped setting using a wire jig. Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supply needs!