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It took us a little while to figure out exactly how to connect beads to
our ring in the manner that would work best. Our first solution uses
4mm round beads as shown above. A very nice lady at the Rockville,
Maryland Center for the Arts told me that women love pearls. Her
statement inspired me to us a Swarovski Crystal Pearl Bead to complete the
ring shown above. One nice feature of this design is that the pearl
bead can move in the "setting" but it always stays in the center of the
circle regardless of how the support wire twists.
To make the setting for the 4mm round
 bead
you use 21 or 22 gauge wire (preferable 1/2 hard round wire) and a WigJig
Delphi or Centaur. Make an initial loop in a piece of 21 or 22 gauge
wire about 1 1/2 inches long. Straighten the wire and add your 4mm
round bead. Any round bead will do, even a faceted round bead like a
Swarovski cut glass crystal bead. Position two regular metal pegs in
your WigJig Delphi or Centaur as shown. Place your initial loop on
Peg 1, and wrap your wire around peg 2. Please note that these two
pegs are positioned on the diagonal of your jig, with one empty hole
between the two pegs.
Remove
the wire from your jig and cut the excess wire. Close the final loop
with your bent chain nose pliers. At this point your wire component
should appear as shown at left.
Next,
using the tips of your round nose pliers, convert each of the loops in the
wire component to eye loops.
This jewelry making
technique can be viewed at the bottom of the page here.
The
last before connecting the pearl to the ring is to open the loops on
either end with your chain nose pliers. At this point you are ready
to position the pearl wire component in the loop of the ring as shown
above and then close both loops again with your bent chain nose pliers.
The finished ring will appear as shown at the top of this page. |