Lessons
Lesson Info
Assmbling the Ear Wire
So your wires a twenty gauge metal, which is point eight millimeters, is a comfortable thickness of wired to go through the ear. You don't really want to go thicker some people, that eighteen gauge, which is one millimeter, some people's ears can handle that, but it's, not comfortable for everybody and going thinner is just a little too thin, so twenty gauge is what you want to use, so this is a strip of twenty gauge and then there's also preference of what I'm going to show is how to make, like a very simple loop the end french wire hearing that some hearings will the post french wire your hook, I guess, and then this is a post that I make so that these hearings can do the same thing that can move around like this. So I'm essentially making the little loop here is, well, there you go, right with the post coming off of it, and this way these sticks that are hanging off can can move as you're wearing them as well. So I'm going to show you how to do both of those so that you have the opt...
ion to do which ever ear wire he wants, which means people are preference, it's going to dangly earring no matter what, but um ok, so I'm taking my metric ruler out and the twenty gauge here wire and I'm gonna start out with about three and a half centimeters for these if you want to really long yeah good question twenty gauge twenty games for the year wire sorry if I said I think you said eighteen at the beginning so it's always twenty gauge for your wire think I used eighteen gauge to twist some thicker the copper in the silver which works for bangle but for the ear why you always want twenty gauge not too thick not too thin and I'm starting out with three and a half millimeters and I like to just line it up at the edge of the ruler here and then take these snips and these air flush cutting steps which are my best friend I really, really, really like these they're a little more expensive than the average pyre snips but they work great and I am cutting three and a half centimeters for that one and the one that for the post we're going to be trimming it a little bit later but I'll start with two centimetres for that one right cutting okay so I got these two different lengths for the two different year wires and then the pliers that I used to make the loops are around on one side and flat on the other and actually my preference is even a tapered flat side so it tapers to more of a point then this wide flat side but these will work as well was really great when you're when you're bending wire and you you have round and round the outside round edge of the plier will it'll just crimp in and mar a pure material more than is necessary and sometimes it doesn't look so nice so that's why I like the round in the flat and so with the pliers you're always mean you can the round part is going to be the inside right? And then the outside is the flat side, so I'm placing the wire so it comes right into the center of where the ground and the flat part meat and I'm starting to twist I go past and then fold back a little bit you want to make it so that these meet together get a nice little round loop okay, so it looks like this in the beginning if you have the tapered pliers here, you can get this to kick back a little bit more, but we'll just deal with that after it's actually saw turd together so that's round I'm gonna make a little bit of a bigger one for so the bigger you wanted, the more you just you just move it down on the pliers and worked closer down can't get back so the thing with suffering is you wanted to touch together these two pieces of metal, okay so from that point, I'm going to go and I'm going to saute these together now, so I've got my torch here set up, move this over, and I use a smith many torch, which I like very much those different size tips you can put on the end but is on the smaller side, it is oxygen in propane what I have, you don't have necessarily the professional torches on alternative they could use maybe like the kitchen you can in this case, for everything that I'm showing its on the smaller scale it's not like a big, thick piece of metal or a big project where you just need a lot more heat so you can use the crumble a torch for this kind of thing, you just don't have the same accuracy and you're more apt to milk things and all of that. But there's also some small options for home that is just a small tank with a little bit of propane and then one it's called like there's sets otto fire something easy torch, which you can get the have the flame and it mixes with the oxygen in the air, so you're not dealing with the compressed oxygen and actually in the thinking, the the materials that are online for all of you to use that's in there as a resource, so you want to take flux he wanted the most important thing for suffering is that the pieces air touching and that they're clean uses third arm here the flux you can place over the scene where you're gonna be scattering so that it stays clean it creates a barrier from the air in the air in the atmosphere and keeps the material clean. The other thing here, let's get totally set up. I'm gonna work with hard sah'tar so it's the highest melting temperature of satur that you can use yours want to start with the hard and the move if you have multiple sadder things down to a lower temperature moving from hard to medium tio easy truth be said, I never use easy ever and you can use hard multiple times the media multiple times to so I like to use sheet satur and take some shears and cut little strips of it a strip and then little chips, some cutting a strip. I've got this piece here. You want to really make sure you keep track of which satyrs what once you cut it it's like this looks the same as any of the other satur. So I've got this dish year and I've got a cha on one side and on the other in my home studio, I kind of just keep a section of my suffering board for hard cider and medium satur so coming up with a system that you're familiar with and you use over and over again is the best way to go snipping little pieces you don't need much sadder for this is a tiny little scene that we're going to be saturn closed okay stepping sum up I like the flux this up to you want the satyr to be clean as well all right and we're good to go during the torch on he turned the gas on gas is red always turned gas on first and then add in the oxygen don't need a very big flame for what we're doing all right sauntering pick I'm gonna go and pick up little piece of solar is this one all right and then come over to my piece you want to keep the flame moving I'm gonna place this satyr right so overlaps in the scene keeps the people the flame moving and walla like magic smatterings like magic very cool okay so clinching you can quench and then go to the next one all right I'm moving slow I know that this okay so heating it up and then focusing in kuala okay when you turn it off interest during the green off first it's the opposite green oxygen off first then onto the gas all right tweeze is thinking crunch and then they go into the pickle which is I like to use a citric acid pickle it's a little bit more gentle than the typical stuff but more friendly to the environment works a little bit um slower but it does a great job ok, so they go in the pickle you take them out and then you move from there so you get something out it's clean out of the pickle and you have to deal with the and because the end where you snipped is sharp and not so comfortable to go through your ear so what you want to dio has come over with the flexible shaft and take a cup for so this is a little burr it's shaped like a cup with some teeth on the inside place that into here and you do want goggles anytime you're cutting anything and this place it on the end hold it take a few minutes not a few minutes a few seconds really of this grinding and it cups the end and just makes it a gentle soft curve and then from there could take these players again the round pliers with the flat and shape your wire to your liking something like this you got your your where and it's the same thing with the post you covering the end and you're just making sure it straight coming out using using the flat pyre fire pliers so come straight out same thing you got your ear wires all right, so for the metal use for the itwas going, or some people have grilling over you, sterling silver. I mean, some people still are allergic to that, but that's basic. Yeah, you're using copper, brass or something else for dangling down. You still want the sterling silver, your wire and tiny that like that is not a big investment.
Class Materials
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Ratings and Reviews
Beth Soll
Raissa's work and explanations here are wonderful. 5 Star quality! I am a beginning jewelry student but I have many of the items on her list because I decided to go further with this. She also tells you how to use other tools if you don't have them (i.e. Dremel or even hand-held to twist instead of a flex shaft for twisting the wire)! The dude that wrote that beginners don't have the tools must be joking. There are things you can do ahead of time to prepare yourself if you want to get serious. For example, I previewed this class so I would be ready and got a few things. I will eventually own everything on her list. I'm so glad you included her as a teacher. More please!!
Luminary Organics
This is a fantastic class for a beginning jewelry maker. Raissa is a wonderful teacher. She explains what she is doing as she does it and takes her time to make sure the student understands why she is doing each step. I have watched this class twice so far. The first time I made three different twisted wire pieces for bracelets. The second time through, I made two bracelets and three rings! Thank you CreativeLive for bringing Raissa Bump to your platform!
Nadja Meyer
Good starting point if you have never done any Jewelry at all before