Large Jewelry Wire Links Necklace Jewelry Making Project -- Page 3

Step 8:  Now bend the two ends of the wire down into the position shown at right.  Do this using your fingers.  You don't want to push the wire completely flat at this point, because you need room to cut the excess wire. 

Step 9:  Using your flush cutter, cut the excess wire leaving about 1/8" of wire on either side. 

Step 10:  Using your bent chain nose pliers, push the end of the wire on either side down, until it comes into contact with the loop in the wire.  This will complete one large link. 

Step 11:  There are two options in how to connect these links into a chain.  In the necklace we showed on the first page, we connected the additional links to the initial link before we wrapped the link closed.  In the picture below-left, you can see how a link was added, before one end of the loops was wrapped closed.  In the picture below-center, you can see that after that link was connected, you use your nylon jaw pliers to wrap that loop closed.  You finish attaching that link by following steps 7, 8 and 9 described previously.   To make a full necklace using these large loop links, you will need 17 of these large links.  On the 17th link, you will need to add your clasp as shown below-right.

Alternative Configuration:  The alternative method for connecting these large jewelry wire links into a chain is via figure 8 connectors.  In the picture at right you can see how we used three figure 8 connectors to connect each link together.  Using multiple figure 8 connectors like this makes the necklace or bracelet more stable than using just one.  Furthermore, the esthetic effect of the multiple connectors makes the chain seem more robust.  The figure 8 connectors shown here had the initial loop for each connector made on the first step of our fine step jaw pliers, Item 4003, then we used our round nose pliers to make the second loop the same size as the initial loop.  By using this approach all the figure 8 connectors we make are pretty close to being the same size and therefore they will look better.  Editor's note:  We actually liked the necklace better using the three figure 8 connectors rather than connecting link to link as described in step 11.