Hi I am a new member of the forum, and have just visited the earthly
wealthy site, beautiful work I might add, and very affordable. “I have
a question for you Tas”, I work with beads too, mostly Swarovski
Crystal, Pearls, and Gemstones, here’s my question…have
you found a quick way of closing off jumprings eye pins and
headpins?? now this may sound silly, is there any kind of device
available on the market that will achieve the perfect closure??
I cant imagine there being one, its just that it takes forever for
me, I work with highly detailed work and it can take days to finish
each piece, guess I’m just dreaming here, and wishing there was a
quick solution…but it take thousands of beads to make up
each creation, so you I’m sure can understand my need for knowledge.
Hey the earthstone website is good to have, thanks for sharing it
with the forum.
Best to you, and good luck with your treasure trove of delights!
Kind Regards
Tina Ashmore
Dublin’s fair city, Ireland.
A quick way? In a word - no. There is a little device in the Fire
Mountain (Rio??) catalog consisting of a finger-ring with a small
slotted screw-head protruding, that they show closing the rings -
I’ve never used it, but I’m making more items using jump-rings and
my hands are telling me I need to find a better way. Currently I
use 2 pairs of chain-nose pliers - open the ring by pushing the ends
past each other sideways, hold the ring in one pair while adding
whatever you wish, then close the ring by twisting the open ends
carefully back in place. Best to actually move them slightly closer
together, so they actually meet when you bend them back.
And THANK YOU!! for your kind words about my site and work.
Tas ← just back from a b-i-g show where I spent 'way too much -
somebody please send me a customer!
www.earthlywealth.com
I re-read this part, and want to amplify. I don’t use eyepins much,
because I like to do the wrapped wire loop for security, but maybe
the beads I hand a re heavier than the crystals. I also use the
wrapped wire loop on the tops of headpins. The jump rings I’ve been
using seem to be of work-hardened sterling, and are more secure than
the soft headpin wires would be.
Tas ← dazed with sparklies from the show
www.earthlywealth.com
Save your money. Get three 1 inch square or round pieces of wood you
can grip,screw thee different sized slotted round head screws into
the wood about 3/4 into the wood, this will enable you to close/open
three sizes of your most commonly used jump rings. The slot sizes are
almost unlimited so you can fit any size ring—Bill from Long Island
“Hey thanks for your reply Tas”
Glad you liked my experiences with my spirit friends, its all too
quite without them! Guess they feel Im doing alright and don’t need
their help at the moment. Nannyways, about jumprings I was just
dreaming I suppose, what contraption could do the task?? Ill just have
to stick to doing it by hand, and yeah I always close them as you
have described. I don’t have any probs with eyepins and headpins,
other than they tend to slip through the tiniest of cracks in the
joining of the jumps. Its a mystery to me how ?? It only happened with
one customer, and I had to redo the bracelet about three times. In the
end I resorted to using Silver chain without any opening on the
chain jumps. Guess I just stick to that,I really need to find a good
source for chain, the styles I have come across don’t have rounded
edges and don’t tend to allow as many headpined beads as I would
like. Thanks for taking the time to reply all the same. Your friend in
Ireland Tina
Quick way of closing off eye pins and head pins
Tina, It’s called a “linker”. They come in hand powered, electric or
pneumatic.
You put your beads on the wire and slide the unfinished end into the
opening on the machine. When you pull the handle (or step on the
peddle as the case may be) it cuts off the wire at the perfect
length and bends it around into a perfect eye.
You order them by wire size and eye size. My hand linker is designed
for .029 wire and a .08 or about 12 ga. center hole and it will
handle .027 to .030 wire and give a very good eye.
I bought it for $625 in October 1995 from Gold International
Machinery and it paid for itself by Christmas.
Crafford Precision Products makes electric and air powered models.
An electric one went for about $1,600 in 1998.
You can also get them with interlinking capabilities that lets you
link each one to another loop as you go.
John Flynn
Make a small gold band that fits on your left hand between your
knuckle and finger tip. Saw and file a slot in it that your jump ring
fits into. You will find this to be extremely useful because you
don’t have to stop to pick up a tool. I use gold because of its
hardness. Also I find it Oh so decadent to have a golden tool
(tee-hee).
Julia
The only way that I’ve found for closing jump rings flush & tight
with no visible gap is with 2 pair of smooth jawed pliers. The
pliers may be either chain nose or flat nose depending on the size
of the link. In the interest of reducing link deformation, use the
pliers with the widest jaw possible consistent with link size.
Dave
When I open a jump ring (using pliers) I close the gap created by
the saw. By that I mean I align the ring such that it can be closed
with just a twist and no push. I hope that makes sense… Does using
the ringtool you describe mean you close the gap when you close the
ring? When using pre made butted rings, open and closing is just a
twist, but saw cut rings have a small slice missing that needs to be
closed.
Brian
I work a lot with jump rings and the only way I have found to close
them flush and smooth is, as Dave says, with two pairs of pliers.
When I’m making half Persian 3-in-1 I use just the one pair of
pliers, but that’s because I only have two hands, and I go back and
do it properly afterwards.
There are some things that we do that simply do not have any
shortcuts.
Best wishes to all on Orchid
Pat
I’m a little confused at what you are saying, but a push and twist
will do it for you.
Thanks for all the replies, But I realised that I was only dreaming,
there is only one way to do the job, and stick with the tedious
journey I must. “Hey but it does look beautiful when finished” that
will be my reward.
Thanks once again,
Your friend in Ireland
Tina
Hi All
Apologies if somebody’s already suggested this technique - but
here’s what we used to do (about 25 years ago!) in my parents’
little jewelry shop in Cornwall, UK.
We made a tool, which consisted of a length of 4" length of 1/4"
wooden dowel (dimensions not critical ). In each end of this
dowel, drill a small pilot hole, and then insert a domed or pan-head
wood screw - so that only 1/4" of the shank of the screw is clear of
the end of the dowel.
To close a jump ring, you now only need one pair of suitable pliers,
and this magic tool.
Hold one side of the jump ring in the pliers, locate the other side
of the jump ring in the slot in the screw head, and a quick twist
(maybe with a gentle ‘push’) will close the ring. Because you are
not trying to wrestle with two pairs of pliers, you have much more
control over what’s going on.
We must have used our tool to assemble thousands of tumble-polished
gemstone pendants, earrings etc - and it must have cost us all of a
few pennies!
Hope this helps somebody (and thanks for all the help I received
about my ‘bearing replacement on lap saw’ query some months ago)
Adrian
Suffolk UK
Tedious? It could be worse - you could have to pull or forge the
wire yours elf, make the rings with overlap, planish the ends, weave
the links, drill a hole through the overlapped ends, then rivet
through the hole. In iron. ( Sorry - just saw a sign for the Georgia
Ren Fair)