Wire Wrap Diane Mason

good morning i'm diane mason i'm a wire teacher here at william holland i started teaching here in 2003 this year would have made my what 18th year thanks to covid next year will be my 19th today we're simply going to do a small pendant 30 by 40. this is wonderstone that larry carvey cut in a demo here and we're going to do the pendant today and in the next little demo we'll do the earrings that match first thing you want to do is decide which way you want to wrap your stone do you want it perpendicular or do you want it vertical with the coloring and the the pattern in this stone i do perpendicular pick out which you want at the top which ends you want at the bottom go to the back side and put a small dot so that you won't get all confused and put this thing in upside down now let me tell you that the definition of wire wrap is a handmade wire mounting for a stone that is professional in appearance the definition of fine jewelry straight out of webster's dictionary is a natural stone in a fine mounting so if i take a cabochon like this one which is natural and i put it in sterling which is a fine mounting we have fine jewelry tiffany's would not agree with that okay first thing i'm gonna do is i'm gonna put a piece of tape on here and i'm using red so i hope you can see it you start at the very center of the top you come all the way around to the tape joins if i move too fast not me and you tear it off now while the tape is on your stone you're going to mark where you're going to put your wraps and we've decided to do it like this one okay so i want one in the very middle of the bottom one on the side and one on the other side okay anyone who's had my class knows that this is done with every stone no matter how it's wrapped the tape then comes off of the stone and goes onto the ruler the center at the bottom i put it square on the number six now what i have to do the distance between this mark and this mark must be exactly the same as from this mark to this mark recently on facebook i've seen a lot of people putting stones on and when you look at it the two wraps are not equal they should be equal unless it's planned not to be unless it's in the design so give me just a second let me get this straight that made it simple ones on six ones on five ones on seven now i know from the bale that we're putting on this and the size of the stone that i'm going to add two inches to each end of this tape so i'm going to start at 10 and i'm going to two i'm gonna cut it out i know i can hear my students right now saying yep she's anal about that all right so we're gonna do six that's the center seven and this don't go quite that all right now you get rid of this other piece of tape that is how long your wires will be that's where the wraps will go now how many wires do you need first of all a correctly cut cabochon a larry cubby carvey cut this one so i can tell you it's right can you see has a two millimeter bed in sydney australia they had a convention and they set international standards for the depth of the bezel on a stone two millimeters of course when you go down to an earring it drops a certain percentage from the size of the stone always cover your bezel all right i have linked to my wire where no we're working in gold except we're going to throw in one little piece of silver and see what happens i'm using 22 gauge square dead salt and i'm going to cut them the length of the tape how many do i need well we'll find out i know i'm going to cover this bezel right normally on a three mil on a two millimeter bezel you can put three wires on the outside then you have to have a wire in front and a wire behind those are known as your pull wires pull me you're going to bend them to hold the stone in so i know i'm going to have to have one in the front one in the back back and three on the side now there's one for the front one for the back those are the pull wires two on the side but i'm gonna put some more and that's just because of the design and being able to cover this bezel normally i would not use that many now just to give this bad boy some bling we're gonna twist these two silver wires what i have here is a handheld screwdriver it has a chuck on the end the chuck comes out okay so when it flops out on me don't think i broke something it's made that way i'm going to unscrew it put this in and i'm going to twist it okay i'm going to hold the other end in my pliers now the neat thing about this is it has to be you may see better over here it has to be the pliers and the end of that chuck have to be at the same height if it's like this or like this that wire will not twist evenly so i usually come right here to the edge that is twisted now if you're at home and you've never done this before how am i going to know that the second wire is twisted evenly with the first wire frankly i've twisted so many wires in the last 22 years i can tell but what you do is once you start the twist you count one two three four five six however many numbers you end up with when you get the first one you do it on the second one it should be equal all right these should be equal and they are two twisted wires now we know we want a gold in the front a gold in the back i want two in the front i'm just putting these together this is called making a bundle if you cannot make a bundle you cannot do wire wrap all right that gives me six wires now i'm going to tape these bad boys this other wire is square so it will turn over you'll see me take my pliers and go back and kind of scrunch this if you've got a square wire that's sitting off of the square it'll snap it into place you can put as much tape as you want to on your tapes cheap and it works okay but just remember i'm gonna take it off sometime i'll show you a neat easy way to take that off too you've got to have a neat straight bundle like i said if you can't make a bundle you can't do wire man that one got kind of scrunched see that pair of pliers put him right back where he's supposed to be yep the one thing you want to do is check check and recheck make sure that none of these wires have jumped over each other or are out of place they've got to stay in place and if you've got one that's in up to a quarter of an inch shorter than the others don't freak a quarter of an inch will never make or break a project ever and i can hear my students right now saying uh-huh she says it she says it she says that now this is the length of my tape i got one that's wanted to act silly come on turkey today the today you know what all right now what i'm gonna do is take a fine point sharpie and i'm gonna put these marks on here these marks are right off my tape can you see that got marks on it they're at the same place that they were on the tape all right now i have made this pattern many many times i can tell you that what we're going to do is we're going to put five wraps on the bottom first first let me find my racquet and because of the size of this stone i'm probably going to go a little bigger wrap wire rule of thumb is when you choose your wrap wire it should be one size smaller than the bundle wires always never ever ever let your wrap wire overpower your bundle i'm going to start this i'm going to make my five wraps then you gotta count you know what yeah let's do what the heck all right stop and start at the bad side of the bundle is where the marks are all right first set of wraps is up it's just a little bit tilted okay now let's look at this right in the middle right in the middle now i'm going to start at this mark and wrap toward the cut in that saves the distance in between i don't want to take away from it and i'm only going to put four wraps this time four wraps counted on the good side of the bundle [Music] all right back to your tape that one's in the right place let's see if we can start the other one in the right place all right there's four wraps now i'm going to go back and recheck this distance because if this is not equal you're going to end up out because i'm three quarters of an inch that one is just a little short let's see if he'll scoot yup he scooted too far all right now let's take some tape off folks pick that up that's the best tool you can have your fingernails and your knife hat all right tapes off except for the very ends and that will be the last thing to come up now how do i know how big to make this i'm going to my pile of dowel sticks i'm going to find one that's exactly the size of the end of this cab okay when i look down at all i can see is the edge i'm going to come to this wrap holding it with my thumb start and stop at the wraps next to the dowel i'm going to bend it okay that should exactly fit the base of that cap and it does now you've got to bring it together at the top in order to make your bail i'm can you see coming around and bending it now you gotta leave air guys the size of this air should be just the size of the end of a i don't have a of an ink pen right there you've got to have air because we're going to make a forward bale and that's going to come forward and tuck into that hole okay you gotta have air now let's get everything nice and straight make sure it's right you see i'm using this non-skid stuff here so the okay bring it together and we're going to take it this is where two bundles become one okay we're getting there and if you got it not exactly the same right here don't sweat it we'll fix that when we start wrapping it goes right back on now i need wrap wire for the top on a cabochon i use seven inches at the top on the nearing it's it's five yeah you might have to cut a little bit of this off and throw it away but guess what it's just like cutting hair you can always cut it off you cannot put it back from where the bundles come together you measure up toward these cut ends 1 8 of an inch and i'm going to do this right here you go you're going to start the wrap make three wraps count it on the face side of that stone toward the stone always wrap towards your stone the reason for that is is what's going to happen is it's going to pull this together and it's like shrink wrapping that wire to the stone i'm going to make three wraps make sure they're the same height and as of yet you haven't decided which is the front which is the back so it really doesn't matter in just a minute you will totally and completely decide all right let me get rid of this he's got to go okay when i said on the face of the stone this will be the top three wraps one two three and leave this one sticking up do not whatever you do cut that wrap wire because that's what's going to complete your bail okay i like the forward bale because if you look at this straight on you can see that it's flat in the back that means it lies flat on the chest it doesn't hold away it's also the only bail you can make that you can not free through it up and do it for a guy men will wear this bail all right i got to make sure it fits make sure it looks like it's right these little stones sometimes will swing their fanny yep and this one did it's all right turkey i'll fix you okay now we're going to do what's called pulling the wire you're making a sandwich the wire is the loaf bread the cab is the ham and cheese the loaf bread holds the ham and cheese in this wire holds it in so i'm going to the back of the stone i'm going to catch perpendicular to this wrap if i can see it [Music] and i'm going to make one pull toward the center of the stone i'm going to go to the other side and do exactly the same thing now as you pull these wires in this wire slides down from this top into here never ever ever pull your top pulls first because what'll happen is it'll go from flat to buckle will not hold your stone well okay so i've got those pulled i'm going to come right next to it i'm going to pull here always the back of the stone first okay we're getting there now coming to the top i'm going to pull right hand turn toward the center of the snow that is the back of the stone you've got to remember the way this is cut it's flat on the back it has to sit the top is sloped so this other will slide up and over all right so we're going to put our stone in and he's in go back and look at it see if it looks straight got a little bit of air that's no problem you can rock it and i'm not happy with the way that top's looking so let me work on it a second pull that out pull this out i'm going to set it in just a tad there we go do not pull here there's a reason for that and there's a time to pull that and we will get to that has a purpose all right the bezel is covered you cannot see the bezel now we're gonna pull the face of this bad boy that's the front and she likes this one and so do i so we're gonna come right here at the bottom and i'm gonna make a little pull in right at the bottom a little pull in and try to get them equal okay right here now notice i did not pull here that's decoration this stone is not coming out i promise you equal okay now i'm going down to a smaller pair of pliers and i'm going to pull the second wire decoration okay oh baby you're looking good all right now let's give it some bling let's pull one of the twisted silver ones huh see that all right let's pull this one now just a wee little bit this stone is so different in color it's wonder stone from nevada so different in color that it easily takes the combination of gold and silver okay now we have these pumps done i'm gonna go back and i'm going to check and make sure that everything is where i want it oh you silly little turkey all right now if you'll look at this you'll see that this cabochon bezel is covered all right that one needs to spread just a tad alrighty now i'm gonna play with this and see what i can do i want this one to have just a tad more bling mind i didn't say gaudy okay we said bling okay that looks like it's pretty equal now look at your back make sure it's where you left it and it is and i still have a hole at the top okay now we're going to separate these bundles get rid of this tape when i say separate i literally mean separate two bundles became one and they're going now back into two now if you look at this you just change the plane on this it went from vertical which is straight up to horizontal which is flat now we're going to put our wire pull out our wires for our bail get rid of this tape get rid of this tape okay looking at the back of the stone in the order in which they're in the bundle i'm going to pull out four wires one on the right one on the left one on the right and one on the left but you know what i don't really like that okay so i'm gonna get rid of two of them what i want is some of that silver wire in the veil okay so i'm gonna take this one down and i'm gonna cut him off that is one of the hardest things for a beginning wire student to get used to it's cutting off where they're going oh god if i cut it off what's gonna happen to it i'm gonna fall out no darling [Music] it ain't gonna fall now i have my two gold ones that's my two back wires now i'm going to pull the next one out which is a silver twisted wire there we go now we're working now you have to put these together what you're actually doing is making another bundle now i'm going to tell you there are days these little rascals fall right together there are days you couldn't take a truck and drag them over there so i'm going to use a little tape god love tape now this is a large stone it's a 30 by 40. so you know that you're not going to wear this on a tiny tiny tiny little chain it wouldn't work so i'm going to take my medium bale pliers and i'm going to go right back here and decide how big i want to make these wraps how big am i going to make that bail that comes up and bends over so i'm going to mark it can i boy for nothing decoration get out the way i'm gonna mark it there we go now remember what i said earlier about your wraps the good side of the bundle the good side of the wraps is always away from the eye or next to the skin well think about where this is going it's going to come up and over like this one so the stop and start of the wraps will be on the inside right here not on the outside let me get me a little piece of wrap wire here i also went down a size in the wrap wire because i don't want this to be lord the only thing you see on this i want it to be tiny i'm going to start at that mark and i'm going to wrap toward the stone remember always toward the stone get up get up get up went too far yeah remember every time that wrap wire goes around a bundle a pair of pliers must touch it you do not whip it on and then mash it down no no no no that don't work i'm wrapping from my black mark all the way into the point sometimes you have to finagle this little rascal lift him up to be able to get where you want to go [Music] and i see right now and i got a little boo-boo i got to fix get your tutti up there there we go that is much more better that's a technical term all right one more time around and i believe we're good all right now i'm going to cut it off be careful what you cut you see we still have the original wrap wire do not cut that off he still has a job to do cut this one off and set him down now you're going to stand it up perpendicular again and you'll see how flat it is back there all right now you got to think about your decoration we're going to do this decoration so i know i'm gonna need two wires the rest of them i'm going to set down be careful what you cut all i need right now is for this thing to cut something that i shouldn't okay you might have some bad words on this camera all right now give me a big boy all righty that's my decoration that's my bail this has to go away now remember we used these to estimate i'm going to catch it large side in the front do not move the pliers move the wire bring it forward now you can see there's a little gap in there you can also see that i'm still holding this with my thumb okay i'm going to pinch him down these are decoration remember that wrap wire we had well here's the last of his job right here and you're going to go around one wait a minute we got something back here that's not supposed to be there please god don't let that break thank you fix the next one myself all right now one i usually go around at least three times two three to the back to the back see you still have an air hole right there all right i'm gonna cut this wrap wire off and i'm going to tuck it in between those wires i'm going to take my little bitty buddies here and make sure it's tight now remember what i said earlier about don't pull the top now you can pull your top there's a reason for this i'm going to come right here and i'm going to pull it in one time the other side and come in one time now remember you just tuck the wire right there what happens is when you pull this vent it pulls that wire and holds it it won't come loose if it does you up in deep water folks all right now we got to get rid of this okay i'm going to come right here kind of lift him up and i'm going to cut him up i usually cut even with the top of my stomach you can see through there gone okay that's how it looks right now now you got to tuck this into that hole most people want to grab a pair of round nose to tuck with uh-uh round nose pliers are wider at the back than they are at the end so when you catch and turn outside's going to turn tighter than the inside so you use a flat nose pair of pliers i'm going to use these little bitty babies right here that's too little i'm gonna roll it in and i'm gonna tuck it and he is there now it's almost done we got to decorate it most people say that's the hardest part and until you get used to decorating yeah it is because you don't know where you're going or what you're doing with it well i have a method that i use for wire for sculpture i'm going to bring both of these wires that are sticking out side by side around notice i'm using my fingers not a pair of pliers i've got them side by side right there now they're going around all the way around and down the other side okay you just gotta roll on one side it's not big and gaudy and you've got two wires very nice now we're going to cut them off and put just a little kink in it how do i know where to cut i've only done this five million times okay and there again you can always cut a little more off you cannot put it back i'm not happy with him now we're gonna let the big wire be go okay what do you think all right i still am not happy with this little turkey that's better and this is a little bit long let me tighten him now last step separate your bail using your pocket knife simply go in and bring it out there you go he's done we're at the stage now that the center wraps on these stones are on they're exactly even one for each one i'm gonna lie these stones down in front of me and i've already put the little dot on the back that's the way they'll wrap okay i've got to find a dowel stick that matches the bottom of it just like we did with our pendant well hello that ain't gonna work mr carvey cut these little pointed and they're pretty let's see if we can find something oh yeah that'll work now i'm gonna take off some tape we got to shape these now i want these two to stay right in front of me step one there let me go over here and do another step just remember that these wraps and this pull on these earrings are not gonna be exactly like the pendant and they don't have to be they just need to be similar they need to complement one another and they need to be similar okay now i'm going to bend these but first what i'm going to do is i'm going to tape this stone let's get rid of that we don't need him anymore i'm going to tape this stone to this ruler i only have two hands these are little and they're slick i need all the help i can get right in the center i'm going to bend this stop and start of the wraps next to the dowel now i know that my three wires go in the back i'm gonna put it up on the stone see that okay i'm going to come in at the top and bend it in there you go now remember how how we left air or space between the top of the stone and the pendant and the start of the the wire this time you're going to leave a little air space too it just does not have to be quite as much there's one and i've already checked these stones they match perfectly thank you mr carvey die and get your tap in order all right two on the top three in the back well i did something right that came out even if you ever do this and one set of wires is a little bit longer or shorter than the other one at the end please god don't freak out just remember what i said a quarter of an inch will never make or break a project never now what i am gonna do is i'm gonna put them back to back butt to butt and make sure that they're shaped the same and they are all right you go with that one you're coming over here with me let's get rid of this all right make sure my dot's at the top dots at the top now on the pendant i used seven inches of wrap wire at the top on this i'm only going to use five instead of going an eighth of an inch up i'm going to go a little bit less from where the two bundles come together same principle you're going to put three wraps counted on the face side toward the stone i'm also using 24 gauge half round to wrap but i think i told you guys that there's one get over there fella now make sure i've got okay i've ended up backwards here pay attention to what's your face and what's your back all right [Music] you know even for those of us who are used to doing this some days your fingers just turn into sticks and they don't work all right two on the front that's what i want now i'm going to take these and put them butt to butt and make sure that these are equal and they are okay guys it's time to pull the stone i'm going to use a smaller pair of pliers same principle as before pull the back wire first and you're only making one pull on the bottom of this now okay these things are going to hang from the ears i'm reshaping this one he got a little out of whack got way out of whack [Music] okay much better stone at the top now just going to make sure that he's fitting that the wires are where i want it there's your back pull smaller bezel is covered i'm going to come right here and do one pull on the front [Music] okay let's get the other one to this point pull the back you know when you make earrings there's always one that's really really good and is easy to work with and then there's that bad boy there's always one no matter what you do he just doesn't want to play in the same ballpark okay that's him this is a good little thing here let's pull one time if you get to the point like this and you can't catch it come here with your knife and lift it up just a tad all right let's look at them together come on get out of the way all right very good now we're gonna do just a little more pulling we want to kind of replicate the design that's on the front of the pendant kinda all right not as much silver in these because of the color but you still want it to have just a little bit of bling there you go and i'm going to spread these two right here covers your bezel covers your bezel let's do the other one here this is the good baby here that i can do him without the knife yep and i'll come right here and lift the silver just so you can see just a little sparkle [Music] now all righty let's look and see if they look alike and they do okay at this point i'm going to look at the distance that i have between the stop of this wire and the start of that stone i'm going to bring it in just a tad and i'm going to scoot this down you little turkey here we go all right let's go back but but make sure it's the same thing and it is okay at this point we're going to take off some tape and make those rabbit ears start thinking about your decoration for this it's an earring you're not gonna put something as big as a box car on there okay you wrap the stone because you want to see the stone you don't want to cover it up so i'm thinking not a lot of decoration on here all right let's separate these all right there's my rabbit ears let's do this one all right now we're at that point now remember that the last thing you do is take this tape off if you take this tape off before you separate these rabbit ears you're going to have 10 wires sticking up just like that and you're going to be looking down in there trying to separate it and it'll make you say ugly words i'll throw it upside the wall now i'm going to turn these over the back side facing me that's the back side of the stone facing me okay i'm going to separate these wires right here a little bit remember how we pulled back of this pendant where i said you caught it and you pulled it down to hold it same thing's true here looking at the back of the stone the first wire on the left straight up first wire on the left straight up what we're gonna do here is we're going to do a locking lollipop the lollipop's the thing that connects the earring to either the post or the ear wire you lock it so that the stone will come out okay this is just a cabochon and i'm sure that there are people who will say well that's a dang nice cabochon sure but what if it were a two millimeter faceted aquamarine you've got to understand you don't want them falling out now i'm going to twist that wire we stood up and you see i'm holding that grip that for dear life if you don't this wire will twist it will twist all the way up and through there you don't want that i twist this to give it a little different look on the front and also to make this wire a little stiffer so that it'll go and stay where the heck i put it and there are days that that doesn't happen but today's not going to be one of them so i'm holding this right here sure i am good and tight now all right this wire that's sticking up i'm looking at the face of the stone bring it straight through the grout gap and straight down okay let's do the other one straight through and straight down now what's going to happen is we're going to cut him off be careful what you cut that's close now we're going to use little tiny round nose pliers and we're going to bend this and tuck it right there that folds in and it locks it it won't come out spitting cutters done bad news okay now both are done first wire on the right hand side in the back bring it up and over this is making your lollipop okay that's the thing that connects it i have a mark it's just about going off my round nose you want to make sure that you bend it at the same spot on these earrings i'm going to come to the back i'm going to hold it get out of the way this thing's going to come over and down that makes the lollipop now come in there he fits straight down the back of that stone see that okay let's do the other now let's put him in okay at this point you've got to make sure that they are the same you don't want one earring up here and one down here so i'm going to hold them equal on the bottom and make sure get up there i want to make sure that they're the same height and you can see that they are not so i'm going to shorten this one he's a little bit long this is when you can adjust this after you get this thing made you can hang that in the wind that just simply does get up there simply does not happen all right there we go now they're even all right at this point this is going to cut off and it's going to tuck from the back i left him just a table okay he's tucked let's get the other one cut and tucked okay now we've thought about our decoration face me face me remember it's mirror image that comes from the right on one it should come from the left on the other okay let's just do one very simple one i'll do it inside on that one and then inside on this one is two diamonds okay that's my decoration wire let's get rid of everything else i'm gonna take this down and i'm gonna cut it up careful what you cut smoosh him in [Music] leave that wire sticking up that's for decoration i'm gonna cut this off so i can see it now let's get the other one to that point okay this one's sticking up [Music] now let's move him down okay at this point i'm going to take this wrap wire and i'm going to come around over everything over the piece that went down in the front and was tucked over the air lollipop in the back i'm going to count the number of times i go around here that's three i'm going to put one more just like with the pendant take this to the back cut it and tuck it from the little boys into that hole now remember the back of the pendant we had to put at the top same principle here you're going to pull that what it does is it catches hold of that wire you just tuck there and pulls traction against it to make sure it doesn't fall out somebody got overambitious with their pliers i think okay now i know i put four on the front of this one this one has to have four and you ask who would be anal enough to count that i would ask my student one two three and forward back to the back cut it and tuck it got it too tight all right this little this is the bad boy this is the one that don't want to behave guess what he's going to he just doesn't know that yet okay now on an earring you want to make sure that this is left open try not to cover too much of that you want to see it all right these pliers are good for straightening boo-boos come down now let's bring the other one that one came from the left and the right this one has to come from the left see one from each way they have to be mirror image and i see that i've got more swerve on the other one all right i'm gonna cut him off careful what you cut i'm simply gonna make a little loop right on the end all right now the other one i'm going to cut him off and i'm going to turn him back okay now put them down and look at them and i am just a tad anal enough that i don't like that one up just a tad and in okay much better now i have a pair of ear wires here and folks if you can it's a good idea to make your own ear wires always especially if you sell your jewelry or if you do shows these are considered handmade well hello why would you put a bald ear wire on a handmade earring you wouldn't i'm going to put one right here the earring is made with 20 gauge round that's the only time i use round wire is to make an ear wire or to make a hook and eye on a bracelet now if you're there is the finished product

Channel: William Holland School of Lapidary Arts

Views: 2,764

Keywords: lapidary, wire wrap, williamhollandschool

Id: 5Emrr-jRQlc

Length: 69min 14sec (4154 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 21 2020