Coils. Making wire coils. Coiling gizmo.

Wire Coils. Making wire coils. Coiling gizmo. Wire wrap tutorials. Handmade Wire jewelry.

Wire wrapping is a unique technique for jewelry making. There are two ways: you cover pendants with wire or you use the wire alone. There are a lot of different ways to show off your creativity. You can make various intricate wire designs. You don’t always need a pendant to – if you are creative enough, just wire is enough. But using pendants is also a very special detail that you can’t ignore. It’s up to you to choose your path. But be careful and use appropriate wire thickness. Thickness often defines the character of the future piece of jewelry.

I like to work with 1 mm (18 ga) thick wire and 0.4 (26 ga) thick wire. The first one I use to make frames and the second one I use for the weaving. There are different materials that you can choose from. But I prefer to use copper wire. It is not expensive and the softness is appropriate. So, I’d suggest you choose copper wire for your jewelry as well.
Today we are going to make wire coils. Have you ever heard about them? Maybe some of you have already used them in your work?

I use wire coils for my jewelry pretty often. It always looks good, no exceptions. I especially like to make them of copper wire. It is simple to use, but your friends will definitely love it. For example, I always use wire coils while making Tree of Life pendants. The assembly of it is really similar to the Coiling Gizmo.

I have already told you about Coiling Gizmo in my previous tutorials. Go check them out if you haven’t done it yet. We made short coils for jewelry back then. And we used lots of different tools for it.
This time, in order to make long wire coils we need some extra tools. We can’t use the same tools that we used while making Wire Gizmo. Look at the photo below as an example. This is the tool I’m talking about.

I couldn’t find and buy such a tool in any store. All my searches hopelessly failed. So, I made it myself. I used two hands drills. I fixed them tightly on the board. But they should be opposite to each other. The gap should be about 80 cm. It is not difficult at all so you can easily make something like this.
On the left side instead of the drill, you can attach a freely rotating carabiner as in the photo below. The tool may look awkward, but it is really effective.

It is very convenient to use this device. When I need I just take the board and attach it to the table with a self-tapping screw or a clamp. Everything ingenious is simple.

We should place a copper wire between the drills. The wire should be 1 mm thick. But do not fix it too tight. The tension should be medium, not hard. That is the wire that will be winded by the second wire. The second wire should be 0.4 mm thick. Then, we need to crimp the thin wire. You can use your fingers – just crimp the wire between them. Or just take silicon-tipped pliers, they are very convenient. But be careful – the thin wire should be wrapped tightly around the thick one. Once again, the thin wire serves as a spring of wire and the thick one serves as a mandrel.

Look at the photo. It’s me, head over hills in work.

After we have wrapped the thin wire around the thick one, it’s time to remove the thick wire. Put a smooth knitting needle in the drill. It should be 2 mm thick. As for me, I used a knitting needle 20 cm long. We will wind the spring of wire around this knitting needle.
In order to realize how much wire you need and how long the wire coil will be – you need to make at least one wire coil. I can’t tell you exact variables – you need to find them with trial and error method. There are certain subtleties in this work that can be understood only in practice. There is a relevant saying for this – the road will be mastered by the walking one.

Wire wrap tutorials. Handmade Wire jewelry.

After that take two pieces of wire. They should be about three meters long and 0.4 mm thick. We need to twist them together. You can use a hand drill or electric screwdriver. As a result, we will get a piece of twisted wire. Wind it into the gaps of our wire coil.

A Wire Coil is ready. Now we can use it for jewelry making. Over time, as you gain some experience in making Wire Wrapped Coils, you will know how much wire you need to make a wire coil of the desired length.

Pendants Tree of Life. Wire Wrap tutorial. Step by step tutorials