Tools

Taken from pages of one of the special issue of Bead & Button magazine,
a. Roundnose pliers
b. Chainnose pliers
c. Wire cutters
d. Crimping pliers
e. Awl
f. Twisted wire beading needle

They say you need the right kinda people to do the right kinda job and the principle applies the same when it comes to jewellery making. The tools are the people helping you to do the job. So, before you even embark on the journey, you would first and foremost need the necessary tools to do the job.

I know how some people emphasize on good quality tools but in my view, as long as it is the right tools, it should do a reasonable good job. As far as the quality of the tools is concern, it only affects the quality of your workmanship and also a matter of durability. Say if you are only picking up jewellery making as a fad hobby now, I don't think it's necessary for you to spend so much on it. But however if you do intend to do this for a long term, then yes, it would be a better idea for you to get a set of good quality tools, not only in terms of cost-efficiency (good quality ones last much longer) and also in fine tuning and perfecting your craftsmanship. It's a matter of practicality.

The three most basic tools that you will need would be; chain nose plier, round nose plier and side cutters. As for the last one, some call it flush cutters and some call it nipper tools but it's all the same. I'm not sure exactly where you can get them from retail but I believe you should be able to get them from any bead shop. I got mine from Ebay Malaysia.

I will not delve on the above mentioned tools because those are rather common information that you could easily sourced from anywhere. What I would like to highlight to you about tools is the crimping pliers. This is a specialty tools used specifically to crimp beads. I noticed it's not a very common tool used in Malaysia because I haven't seen any sold around and when I mention it to some jewellery maker, some haven't even heard of it before.

For one, it's very expensive. I asked my aunt to get it for me from the UK and it costs 10 pounds! I had to buy from UK because someone other than living in Malaysia I got was living in UK, so that was my only choice. :P UK is not the only place selling them. But still, it won't be cheap. So I guess that's why not many people bothered with it. Many are quite contented with crimping it flat with a chain nose plier. But there's something about the plain 'flat' appearance that I don't like. While some may find that it's so small that it's hardly even noticeable but to me it still lacks the 'polished' element in that piece of work.

Here's a close-up of the crimping pliers and how much neater it crimps.















As you can see from the picture here, there is two 'bumps' on the jaw. Crimping with a crimping plier is a two-step process. You first position your crimp within the inner depression to form a crescent (picture on the left below) and then 'close' the crescent with the outer depression so the crimp becomes a tube form as shown in the picture below.





It's not as troublesome as it sounds really, although you do need some practicing before getting a hang of it, well, for me at least. :) But don't you think it does a much better crimping job?
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Postscripts:
The pictures above are not taken by me by the way, I got them from All Info About Jewelry Making. This is one site suitable for beginners to intermediate where they housed all the information you need to know on the basics of jewelrymaking. Plus, they've even got a page with all the free projects sorted out alphabetically and it tells you at the beginning of each project, the skill level and time required to complete it. How neat is that!
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