|
You hear a lot about what the best jewelry making tools for beginners are, what sort of essentials you can’t be without, which you should buy first. What you don’t see quite so much information about is what to get next – the things you should be looking out for once you want to advance from being a beginner. 1. Crimping Pliers It is perfectly possible to close crimp beads with flat-nosed pliers. The benefits or crimping pliers are twofold: firstly that the finished crimp looks better, neater and more professional, and secondly that they tend to give a slightly more durable result, with significantly reduced risk of the thread slipping out of the crimp. It’s also worth bearing in mind that if you’d like to use crimp covers, you’ll need to have closed your crimps with crimping pliers for them to fit properly. If you’re only just starting, there are many more important jewelry making tools than these – but if you’ve been beading for a while, it will soon become clear that crimping pliers are an extremely handy thing to have around. 2. A Bead Design Board Of course, you don’t at all need a bead design board to design your beaded jewelry; you could just as well do it all on a bead mat or, for that matter, an ordinary tray. They’re not the most glamorous of jewellery making tools, either – they’re not as satisfying to use as a bead reamer or as utterly ingenious as Thread Heaven. There’s no denying that they make things easier, though – they have flocking to keep everything still, grooves to delineate what’s what, and measurements to show you exactly how long your finished product will be. They’re made for designing bracelets, necklaces and anklets, but you could easily take advantage of the flocking, the grooves and the measurements and use them to design other things too – like the drops of long earrings, for example, or a set of tiny beads to be woven into a ring. 3. Memory Wire Cutters Most people don’t work with memory wire all that often, but it’s definitely a good thing to have around – it’s invaluable for creating pretty bangles or striking choker necklaces without needing to learn any metalwork. Ordinary jewelry making tools simply cannot deal with it, though; if you’d like to work with memory wire, you’re going to need to buy a set of specialised memory wire cutters as it’s so much thicker and heavier and springier than ordinary wire. Most beginners decide not to work with memory wire for this very reason – the necessary extra purchase can be a little off-putting – but once you’re ready you’ll find that it’s actually incredibly easy; all you really need to do is string beads onto it, after all! 4. A Knotting Tool Everyone can make knots. Knots are, when it comes down to it, really not that difficult to do. The thing is, though, if you’re making jewelry you quickly discover that there are a lot of other things to think about when making knots – how close does this need to be to the bead? Is it going to be large enough to stop it from slipping through the bead’s hole? Is this likely to be secure enough not to come undone while being work? Knotting devices are completely invaluable jewellery making tools for many beaders, as they eliminate all of those worries in one fell swoop. For more information on jewelry making tools visit PandaHall.com today!
Related Articles -
jewelry making tools, making tools,
|
