How To Wire Wrap A Bail! Wire Wrapping Made Easy!

hi my name is tegan i'm the local jewelry making expert here at jacobs trading if you haven't heard of us before make sure you check out the description below for information that's going to lead you to our website and our online store today we're going to be talking about wire wrapping a bail which is the top part of a pendant where the necklace goes through let's get started so to start we're going to introduce you to the kind of tools that we're going to need to do this we have some side cutting snips we have round nose pliers and flat nose pliers as for wire we're going to be using an enamel coated copper wire copper wire is very forgiving so it's a great beginner's wire it's very soft and it doesn't break very easily we're also going to be using a 22 gauge wire if you're unfamiliar with what gauge is or i find it a little confusing check the description and you'll be able to find our video on information on what exactly wire gauge is so the first thing you're gonna do is cut yourself a length of wire usually around eight inches or so is a good place to start if you're just beginning if you're getting into once you're more practiced and you want to do all these fancy little curls and swirls on there you're going to eventually need more wire for that but if you're just starting out with a very basic bail about six to eight inches is about place to start so the first thing you're going to want to do your wires prep it so by what i mean by this is to get rid of any of these little imperfections so sometimes when you first take your wire it's hooked on these edges and that can leave little bumps and crannies on there so you want to get that straightened out so usually what i'll do is i'll start with my flat nose pliers and i'll kind of run it on the edge of my finger and kind of pull on it and that usually smooths out some of the bumps in the wire if you have some very stuck ones in there a good wiggle that doesn't come out with your finger once again using those flat nose pliers just kind of pinch it around in a circle very lightly and that's going to help get rid of those imperfections so that you have a nice smooth wire to start working with next we're going to switch to our round nose pliers you're going to grab on all the way up into the top widest part the reason you want to be up in the widest part of your tool is because we're actually forming the top part of the bail where the necklace goes through some necklaces have thick clasps or hoops on the end that can be a little bit big so you don't want to create a very tiny little top you want it nice and large so that you can fit any necklace through so that's why we're all the way up in the top there we're going to start around about an inch and a half or so down the wire all the way up in your tool and you're going to start rotating around so you're creating essentially a half circle and then we're going to stop and what it's going to create is a teardrop shape in your wire now we're going to switch back to our flat nose pliers and we're going to create actually a second loop so this is loop number one where we went up and around with that teardrop shape now we're actually going to follow that same pattern a second time so we're going to grab on with our flat nose pliers right where those two wires intersect and you're going to bend it up so now we're coming along to be parallel with this wire so sometimes it's good to kind of pinch both sides and you want to follow that shape so sometimes you can use your fingers use the tool whatever is more comfortable for you so now we're following that same line we're going to switch back to our round nose pliers put them back in make that half round shape once again and back to the point where those wires cross so now we have the same teardrop shape except now there's two wires now that we have our two teardrop shapes we're going to finish it off with this extra little small half of the wire you don't want to use the long part you want to use the short side that we left the tail end of it we're going to take the round side we're going to pinch it and lift this wire up underneath that little u shape that got left there so we're going to lift it up and underneath while you're pinching nice and tight and now we're going to take this wire and wrap it around this long wire so it's kind of like wrapping say an extension cord around a hard pole so they're not wrapping around each other equally one is wrapping around one that doesn't move so we're gonna come around like this and i'm just gonna begin wrapping around in a circle i'm pinching this part nice and tight with my thumb and my index finger so that it can't move and come undone and i'm using my dominant hand to wrap those little circles all the way around it's kind of hard to show as i go because my fingers kind of cover it usually i do about three or four circles and then i stop but if you want to do more or less that's okay too say if while you're doing this it kind of comes apart and you get kind of a gap you can fix this as you go by taking your flat nose pliers and you're going to just pinch both the top and the bottom side of that coil and just pinch it together just to correct that so i like this length and i'm going to stop there so i'm going to take now my snips i'm just going to cut off any excess wire that was there now you're going to have kind of this like pointy bit that sticks up and we're going to kind of tap it down so you never want to like completely pinch and roll at the same time because you might damage your wire as you do that what i'm kind of doing is tiny little taps as i go so this little point is what i'm getting rid of tap tap tap tap to get rid of that little point so the last thing we're going to do with this is make some minor adjustments so you can see sometimes it gets kind of twisted or turned so what we can do is just kind of pinch that bottom just to straighten it out if the circles get a little uneven you can go back with your round nose pliers and you can pop it in there give it a couple taps just to straighten him out so that you have a nice level circle on both sides nice and even straight down the center and that is how you make your top bail last thing i'm going to show you is now how to apply it in a basic way to a pendant so there's lots of diversity in how you can finish for the sake of this video we're going to keep it simple and i'm going to just do the most basic form of finishing but in future videos i'm going to cover how to do a fancier wrap in your finish which is going to be what we're going to use up this extra tail of wire but for today i'm going to show you this way so you're going to grab your pendant it should have some sort of hole if you're looking to do what's called caging where you're wire wrapping a piece that has absolutely no holes in it we're going to cover that eventually in a video but it's a much more advanced form of wire wrapping if that's what you're looking to do definitely start here and get some practice in before you get to caging so the first thing you're going to do is decide which way you want that to go through it doesn't really matter if you want to go from the front to the back this piece it doesn't really matter which way but sometimes it's relevant to determine if you have if you like a front side more so maybe i like this side more so i'm going to determine that that's my front so you can either come in from the front or the back when you're starting out the only reason to determine which way you want the front of the back is if you were eventually going to decide to add some of those little curly bits on there so we put it through and we're just going to kind of lift it up sometimes it kind of creates a nice little angle there so i'm going to actually angle that up as well i'm taking the form of the pendant so i'm trying to curve that around and lift it up at the same time so we get a nice shape so if i pull that forwards you can see it's now kind of bowed and round that's the same shape as the top of the pendant there we're going to lift this now up the back side and to finish it off all we're gonna do is just like when we created the coil on here we're gonna do the same thing except now we're gonna work from the bottom up to the top and coil it back around just to hold on so we don't lose this so now we're wrapping around i kind of hook it underneath the very bottom part so it holds on nice and snug and then just to finish it off we're just slowly going to wrap it back around so it's got a nice smooth finish and it just makes it nice and snug so it can't come apart once you've wrapped it all the way back up along the top typically towards more the back side is where i'll finish the wire so it's going to the back side as opposed to the front just so it hides it more get in there with your snips cut it as closely as you can and just like i showed you earlier you're going to go in with your flat nose pliers and we're going to flatten down the little tiny piece of wire that's sticking out so once again don't pinch and twist at the same time you want to do like little tiny taps as you go so tap tap all the way around until you get that piece nice and flush so you can't feel it and now the last thing we're going to do is actually open up these two wires so get in there with your fingers and just separate them this makes a really nice elegant look for your necklace to go through once again sometimes things get a little crooked and that's okay so just hold on nice and straight and just adjust how you like and that's how you do the top bail part and this is where your necklace is going to go through all right so that's all i have for you today guys hope you enjoyed this video on wire wrapping and bail if you like what you saw be sure to hit that like button it helps us out greatly also if you want to see more videos coming out on wire wrapping or a lot of other topics that we actually cover here at jacobs trading be sure to hit that subscribe button we have videos coming out every week and that's all i have for you today have a great day and happy wire wrapping

Channel: Jacobs Trading Ye Olde Rock Shop

Views: 18,953

Keywords: how to wire wrap, how to wire wrap a pendant, how to make a bail for a pendant, how to make a bail, how to make a bail for jewelry, how to make a bail with wire, jewelry making tutorial, how to make jewelry, how to make a pendant, wire wrapping stones, wire wrapping crystals, wire wrapping tutorial, wire wrapped pendant, wire wrapping for beginners, how to make jewelry at home, how to make jewelry with wire, how to make jewelry for small business

Id: cYb5EbY-XD0

Length: 9min 9sec (549 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 20 2021