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In Praise of Flat Nose Pliers - Advice For the Novice Jeweler

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surgicalmaker
In Praise of Flat Nose Pliers - Advice For the Novice Jeweler

I started making simple jewelry eight years agobeaded bracelets with elastic beads that I strung beads onto wire, and held by crimps made of metal. The items I needed were simple: beads, wire and a pair of flat nose pliers. Ah, pliers! Who would have thought there was plenty to say about those tools.

In reality, before I speak about pliers I have some generalizations to make:

In addition, when you begin your jewelry-making journey, make sure that you purchase the top tools to make jewelry that you are able to afford. Even the most powerful tools you're not able to buy. There is nothing that will ease your burden more than a top tool and nothing can make you more miserable than a subpar one.

Sure, I'd read this advice, and even received it from other people as I started making jewelry many years ago. However, I, thinking that I had a better idea dismissed it. My tools appeared to be very solid at the time; why would I pay three times as much for something that I didn't think was even better?

A first and foremost, a good tool works in a manner that a poor tool cannot. It's comfortable to hold and the hinges or moving parts are open with ease and the steel is well-tempered, even and free of pits and you're able to use the tools until they are part of your arm. They won't break or fall out.

When I looked at the other tools, I could tell my poor tools were made poorly. The pliers, which had extremely heavy jaws, were virtually impossible to use in delicate wirework. They were constructed from an non-descript pot metal that began to rust and pit within some months of purchasing them. Their coarseness caused my work to be a bit coarse.

In the end I upgraded my standard pliers to a higher-quality manufactured in Germany However, even more recently I took the plunge and purchased a complete set of top-quality tools manufactured from Sweden through Lindstrom as well as Swanstrom. They have been the core of my jewelry-making experience and without them I wouldn't be able to function.

This is the second piece of advice. It's the particular part. There are three types of pliers I'd like to highlight that will significantly enhance your capability to perform high-quality work, and I strongly suggest you to make the investment now. They include:

  • The metal-forming pliers
  • The bent-nose pliers and
  • The long chain-nosed is a plier.

If you are working using gold or sterling wire, metal-forming pliers can allow you to bend it without crimping or scratching the area of interest. One jaw is circular; the one that is flat is slightly concave. This means that when you apply torque or pressurize, the material within the jaws isn't deformed. I have found them particularly useful when bending wire of 20 gauge and more thicker wire.

I'm not without bent-nose pliers for the wire wrapping work I perform. The bent tips let I to wrap and bend wire with no stress on my wrists, as well as reach into unusual places without causing damage to the work I'm doing.

In the event that I were stuck on a deserted island, long chain-nose pliers would be ones I'd like to carry on hand. The tips for long flat nose pliers are both long and tapered to allow you to work in tiny, hard-to reach locations for the toughest of wire-working tasks. They are essential for holding small loops while you wrap it with your pliers with a bent-nose. In contrast, normal jaws for pliers with a chain are bulky and stiff and are hardly suitable for such work.


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