Making earwires/hooks

[Milomade]

Hey all

I was going to buy a load of earwires/hooks for the earrings I'm making at the moment, but figured out it should be easy enough to make them. Anyone got any tips for me...like how to get them all the same, recomended length of wire to cut, should I hammer them etc

[Milomade]

Also - how do you stop round nose pliers putting dents into your wire? I'm getting marks all over the place and don't know how to avoid that or get rid of them.

[AlexandraBuckle]

I think you can get little plastic covers to put over the tips of your pliers...?

Anyone know where you can get them - been on the lookout for them myself...

[The Bijou Dragon]

Roll your wire around some 1 inch dowel until you get a spring like tube.

Slide the wire off the dowel and snip off complete rings.

Make a loop on one of the ends and kink out about 4 - 5mm of the other end to enable you to get the hook through your ear.

Make sure you file down the end going through your ear until it is smooth as it can be very sharp. I use a cup burr and a dremel to do this.

Should end up looking something like these ear-wires here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stripyp...7620811750655/

The ones with the white cat's eye beads were done with inch round dowel and the others were a jar I had lying around.

Cheap, quick and above all don'ts scratch like the other kinds of ear-wires do (imho)

[SilverByRosie]

I use a jig to make my ear wires. You just put the pegs where you want them and wind the wire round. Easy!
I bought my jig, but you can make one with a bit of wood and some nails.

You should definitely harden them in some way. Tumbling them is best, but if you haven't got a tumbler hammering them will do.

~Rosie

[Milomade]

I think you can get little plastic covers to put over the tips of your pliers...?

eh? How's that going to help? surely it will make your round nose pliers thicket, so you can't make small loops in your wire and you'll still be using the same amount of pressure, so won't the marks still appear?

[Trudy]

There is also a jar of stuff you can buy called 'tool magic' which you dip the ends of the pliers in to and it makes a thin rubber coating on the tips to protect wires etc. Its from America but you can get it on Ebay sometimes. You can peal it off again once youre finished.

Or you can wrap them in a thin layer of masking tape

[AlexandraBuckle]

eh? How's that going to help? surely it will make your round nose pliers thicket, so you can't make small loops in your wire and you'll still be using the same amount of pressure, so won't the marks still appear?

I've not used them myself, but I do remember seeing them somewhere.

They would make your pliers a bit thicker I guess, but I think the idea is that you mark the plastic not your work as the plastic is less hard then the silver. I assumed that the plastic may also spring back into shape - but as i say, not used them myself, so i'm not sure.

[Milomade]

Oh I get it - that makes sense. I'll see if ai can find anything on the CG site. Mind you I like the sound of Tool Magic - that sounds great. I do remember seeing some images online of a set of pliers with blue rubber stuff on the ends.

[Milomade]

I just found some on ebay and ordered it.