Wire-Wrapped Spiral Bail Tutorial(Part 1)

Hello friends!

Yep, it's a FREE tutorial! 

So a little back story on how this tutorial came to be. When I was creating my caged heart design that I posted on Facebook.

 

My friend Holly Bailey was enamored with the bail saying it looked so complex. I laughed and told her that it was actually quite simple. I told her I would snap some pics for her so she could learn how to make it. I actually learned this bail from my friend, Melissa Fortner.

So before going on to the tutorial, this was a quickly shot tutorial. I did do a few switcheroo things and didn't include some things in the photo. I will tell you where... I decided to not only do the bail part, but later decided to add a bead and finish it off to complete the tutorial.

Wire-Wrapped Bail Tutorial

 

Supply List

1 ruler

19 gauge dark annealed steel wire

A pen of any kind(think of how large you would like the hole of your bail to be)

Round nosed plyers

Nylon Jaw Flat nosed plyers(photo shows regular flat nosed)

Chain nose plyer(optional)(not pictured)

Cutter

2- gun metal 3mm round beads(not pictured)

Genea Beads-"Tornado Candy Ruffle"  focal(not pictured)

 

Cut yourself one foot of wire.

 

Take your piece of wire and place the center of the wire over the pen and fold down(this makes a hair pin shape).

 

Take one end of the wire and coil it around the pen again completing the second  loop of the bail.

 

Take the longer wire and coil it around the base of the pen again making 3 loops to the bail. This should also keep your wire ends pretty even(see photo).

 

Take your round nosed plyers and pinch the ends of the wire together.

 

Take the shorter length of wire(unless both ends are even) and wrap one wire around the other securing the bail loops. Continue coiling 2-3 more times making  nice wire-wrap.

 

Measure aprox 1" from the top tail of wire with your ruler and cut with your cutters. This will leave a long tail on the bottom to string on your bead.

 

Take your round nosed plyers and make a coil at the end of the short tail to start the bail spiral.

 

Take your nylon jaw flat nosed plyers*(photo shows regular flat nosed plyers, but with the thicker gauge metal, the nylon jaw plyers work best) and grab the coil. Curl up the coil until you reach the bail and bend into shape against the bail til look is desired.

 

Your finished bail should look like this with the long tail hanging out the bottom.

Yay! You have just created the spiral bail!

 

String 3mm gun metal round, lampwork focal, 3mm gun metal round.

 

Hold the bail and beads tightly in one hand and with the other go a  little bit above your bead with your round nosed plyers and bend a 45 degree angle(this gives the wire a slightly bend angle, don't get our your protractor! ;P) When making this loop be sure to make an adequate sized loop since it will need to fit 3 jump rings for the second part of the tutorial. **Start your wire wrap a closer to the middle of the round nosed plyers to insure a larger wire-wrapped loop hole( a little bit further right than the photo).

 

Now take that wire and bend it over the top of the plyers so it touches your bead.

 

Now adjust your round nosed plyers so that they are flat. Continue pushing the wire around the end of the plyers to complete the loop.

  

Now take your plyers and hold across the loop you just made(not through the loop like you did for the wire wrap). Coil the wire around until you reach the lampwork bead.

 

Cut off the excess wire. You may take a  chain nosed plyer and "tuck" the wires end, but this is not necessary.

 

Here you have your finished wire-wrapped spiral bail with focal bead! Woo Hoo!

Tutorial Bloopers

Ok so now do you want to hear the bloopers that I didn't tell you about?  After later deciding to finish up the design by adding a bead instead of just making the bail loop, the rest of the supplies weren't in the photo. 

I started taking the other tools out of the photos so you just saw which part of the tutorial you were on, but decided that I liked seeing the tools in the backgrounds of the photos as it gives them more life :D

So now you may want to know where the hell that awesome bead is for sale, right?! Well you'll have to stay tuned for this weeks shop update where I will talk about the design and offer this and some other designs of this nature for sale!

See you soon!

xoxo Genea