How to Use Artistic Wire Findings Forms Jig Tools

	Artistic Wire, Findings Forms Jig Tool, Oval Ear Wire (1 Piece) SKU: XTL-6052 $6.29
	Xuron Jeweler's Super Fine Pliers Chain Nose Flat Nose SKU: XTL-5450 $25.99
	10 Piece 4 Inch Precision Diamond Needle File Set SKU: XTL-0102 $13.99
	The Beadsmith Wire Whacker - Wire Hardening For Wire Wrapping - Whack It! SKU: XTL-6090 $11.99
	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 is Megan with Beadaholique.com I'm going to show you the new artistic wire finding forms that we've got in and I'm going to show you one as an example of how to actually do it but as you can see we have a really wide variety of different styles here and we have some that are ear wires some that are like a connector link or an earring chandelier finding. We have some clasps. There's a whole bunch of different ones and I'm just gonna show you one as an example. They all come with pretty good instructions so you should be able to adapt it to whichever style you get. I'll just open this up The one I'm gonna show you is the oval ear wire It's a really nice versatile earring finding. One of the more basic ones. Be careful you don't lose this little metal cylinder here. It's kind of loose in there so the jigs are nice and small, compact they don't have a lot of extra plastic on them. It should be easy to store them these are great if you wanna make your own findings and they will let you make them quickly and they're also going to make it so that they're uniform. So your two earring hooks will always be the same size and shape and that's really really great especially if you're selling jewelry it can be a big time saver so here I have the instructions and they're really clear and they have photos so on the package it does give you a recommended gauge range for your wire so for this earring hook it says 22 to 24 gauge I would probably stick to 20 or 22 because they're soft and if you use a 24 you're gonna need to do a lot of hardening to get your wire to be nice and firm. I'm using 20 gauge so just following along with what they got on here my end of my wire is kinda mangled. I'll just cut that off it says to use a five inch piece of wire. I always use a little bit more than I think I'm going to need now we're going to insert the end of our wire through the little hole, there's only one hole in this one. So it's pretty easy. Bend it down and hold onto it on the back and now all you do is follow along with the instructions. It's going to tell you what path to wrap your wire around. You just do it exactly in the order that it says. So for this particular one you're going to wrap clockwise around the large pin and then you're going to pivot around the smaller pin. That's gonna give you the bend at that bottom of your ear wire and now wrap around the oval and once you do your first bend you can let go of the back when you're doing any kind of jig work it's helpful to kinda wrap past where you need to get your wire to really hug the shape. Then you're going to pivot back and you're going to wrap around the little triangle and that's gonna give you the little kick back at the end of the hook so once you have your piece wrapped around you're going to take this little cylinder they call it the pusher tool. What it's for is to push the wire flat when you go around in a spiral and you wrap all the way around you going to be layering on top and your wire will go up and so you wanna take the little tool and just push the wire down flat and make sure that it's nice and snug to the back. When you're done unbend the little piece at the back pop off your earring hook you can kinda tweak it a little bit make sure the shape is how you like. I'm just going to clip at the loop then you're just going clip at the end here now if you're doing a clasp or a connector link or something as long as you've got your ends not sharp you're good but on a earring hook you're always gonna wanna make sure that you prepare that earring hook to go into somebody's ear. So there are several different ways you can do it you can use a cup bur, you can use a diamond file, that what I have, you can just use a nail file If you don't have those things all you gonna do, if you have a cup bur then you probably know how to use it. We do have a video on how to use it if you don't otherwise just take your file and you're just going to file diagonally across the edges of the tip of the wire and be careful that you don't scratch the rest of the wire if you're using a color coated wire because it will scratch off the finish, just right at the tip and you can just kinda go all the way around the edges and you're just trying to make sure that you get that nice and smooth go all the way around a few times. It shouldn't take that long and once that feels nice and smooth and it doesn't scratch your finger at all and you feel like it would be comfortable going in your earring then you're done, you can make your second earring hook now one thing with the soft wire like this is it is, even with the 20 gauge it's so pretty fluid and flexible. So there's a lot of ways you can work harden that, you can use a wire whacker you can hammer it with a nylon hammer, you can tumble it if you have a tumbler. There's a lot of different ways to harden that, you can also hammer just the back part with a regular chasing hammer, it will flatten it out a little bit the nylon options are going to keep the finish nice and shiney without scratching the color but that's also up to you whether or not you feel like it's strong enough or that you need to harden it a little bit more Go to www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas!