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How to Unsubscribe: If you signed up for our newsletter and then decided you don't want to receive it any more, the proper way to unsubscribe is to select the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of every newsletter e-mail or to follow our sign up link above. On that sign up page we also provide a way for people to unsubscribe. Bead & Button Show June 4, 5, 6, and 7: Gary Helwig, inventor of the WigJig, will be at the Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee. He will be doing free demonstrations June 4th through 8th. If you visit the show, please look for Gary in the Soft Flex Booth. Gary will not be at a booth labeled WigJig, but he will be doing WigJig demonstrations at the Soft Flex Booth. The Bead & Button Show is in the Midwest Airlines Arena in downtown Milwaukee. (Please note that the show is not open to the general public on June 4th.) You can find information on this show here.
Starting in July we are going to increase the price of our Rainbow AB beads by $1 per 8" strand of about 17 beads. We import these beads ourselves and we have done some comparison shopping and found that we should raise the price of these beads. We have found that when we under-price an item it won't sell as well because customers perceive the item must be cheap. It is difficult to set prices for imported items. As you can see above, sometimes we get it right and sometimes we have to adjust. We do suggest that our customers take advantage of the new lower price for our 7x18mm pendants and purchase any Rainbow AB Beads (like the ones used in this months new jewelry project) before our July price increase. You can view these beads below.
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On Sale: We update the jewelry supplies that we have "On Sale" with every newsletter. A small sample, of the products we have for sale at discounted prices are, shown below. Please click on any of the links below the pictures to view our entire list of sale items. Select the picture itself to view that specific item in our Internet Store. This sale will be effective through June 30th 2009 or until we run out of that item. |
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20G
Non-Tarnish Silver, Silver-Plated Wire |
Free Jewelry
Design:With every newsletter we provide a new jewelry design from WigJig University to spur the creative juices. This weeks design is our new approach for making necklaces using bead stringing wire and 22 gauge round wire. The advantage of this new approach is that it is stronger than a necklace made using crimp beads. We use this new technique to make the four necklaces shown at right. ![]() If you have ever had a problem with a crimp bead breaking, or a necklace pulling apart due to a problem with the crimp, this new technique may be perfect for you. For us, we won't be buying any crimp beads in the future. This new approach uses end cone findings to hide the connection between the bead stringing wire and the wire component that we make to connect to the clasp. The completed clasp portion of the necklace will appear as shown at left. In this case we used a magnetic clasp. A finished necklace will appear as shown below left or right.
We really believe that this approach to making necklaces creates a professional quality product. Please select any picture above, or select here to view our instructions for making a necklace using bead stringing wire without crimp beads. |
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Past Techniques: We maintain a techniques web page that provides links to the discussion of techniques in our prior newsletters. You can visit this web page here. Follow the links on that page to the discussion of the technique in that newsletter. ![]()
Jewelry Technique:
First, the cutters made for cutting jewelry wire are made to cut soft wire. In this case "soft" has a different meaning than the stiffness or springy nature of the wire that we discussed in our last newsletter. In this case soft refers to the strength of the material or the Mohs hardness used by the gemologists. Copper, silver, gold and gold-filled wire are easier to cut than brass and all five materials are much easier to cut than steel. Most jewelry wire has a Mohs hardness of 3-4 while steel has a Mohs hardness of 5-6.5. Jewelry wire cutters are made to cut copper, silver, gold, gold-filled and brass wire up to 12 gauge. They are made to cut these wires and leave a flat or "flush" cut on one end of the cut wire. To do this the cutting surface of the best cutters is made with one beveled surface and one flat surface as shown above. Unfortunately, this feature, that makes them excellent for making jewelry items, also makes them more susceptible to becoming dull and getting nicks when they are used improperly. In the case of most jewelry wire cutters, they are not made to cut anything other than copper, silver, gold, gold-filled, and brass wire. They are not made to cut a clasp finding, even clasps made of copper, silver and gold and they are not made to cut steel, even steel wire. Bead stringing wire like Soft Flex is made of stainless steel micro-filaments and ordinary jewelry wire cutters will not cut bead stringing wire without being damaged. The bottom line here is know the capability of your cutter and know what you are cutting. If you need to cut items that are harder than jewelry wire, you need a special cutter. For cutting bead stringing wire you need to use cutters that are specially hardened and made to cut that wire. For cutting bead stringing wire, we recommend either Item 0356 or Item 0645. If you want to cut clasp findings, or anything made of pot metal, or memory wire you need a different cutter. For this application and for cutting anything larger than 2mm in size regardless of material, we recommend a heavy duty cutter like our Item 0808. Now let's discuss what to do if you should get a nick in the jaws of your cutter or what you can do when the jaws of your cutter seem dull. In our grand-fathers time there was a door-to-door tradesman who would visit a neighborhood and sharpen scissors and knives. In our modern, disposable society, we tend to discard a pair of scissors that have become dull, where in the early 20th century and before, these items were routinely sharpened and re-used. For jewelry wire cutters, you have the same choice. You can discard your cutter when it gets a nick, or you can sharpen them. Unfortunately, the tradesman won't come to your door any more to do it for you. Sharpening the jaws of a cutter is something that almost anyone can do. It requires two things -- a small flat surfaced file like a jeweler's file (Item 4023) and patience. To sharpen the jaws of your cutter you need to sharpen the flat side of the jaws with the cutter held closed and sharpen the beveled side of the cutter on both beveled jaws with the jaws open. Use your flat surfaced jeweler's file and file from the hinge toward the tips of the cutter repeatedly. When sharpening the beveled jaws of the cutter, it is important to sharpen both jaws equally and to file from the hinge to the tip. Don't file back and forth in one spot as this will create a notch in the jaws. You can check your work by holding the closed jaws of the cutter up to a light. When your cutter is properly sharpened, you won't see light between the jaws when the jaws are closed. Continue filing until both jaws of your pliers are sharp. Finally, we at WigJig are always looking for a better way to do things. Currently we are developing a new cutter that is hardened so that it can cut bead stringing wire and shaped so that it will cut jewelry wire with a very flush cut. This new cutter will retail for just under $22. We hope to have this new cutter available for sale starting in August. Look for an announcement about the availability of this new cutter in our August newsletter.
You can three different ways to combine cloisonne beads as focal beads and using either black onyx or crystal pearl beads as background beads left and above-left. Warning! Joke Follows. If you have ever in your entire life been offended by any joke -- please skip the below paragraphs. It is not our intention to offend anyone! We don't write these jokes, we only re-tell jokes that we have heard on the public radio, television or over the Internet. Boomer Humor: A male customer goes to check out and pay for his merchandise at a sporting goods store. At the check-out counter he notices a male employee wearing sun glasses indoors. As the customer steps up to the counter the employees says with a smile, "Hello, this check out will be a little different because I am blind. I rely on my other senses to process your check out. Please place your items on the counter." The customer places his product on the counter and the employee picks it up and says "I can tell by the feel that this is a Shakespeare Rod with 20 pound test line. This item costs $29.95." At this point the customer is getting ready to complete paying for his fishing rod and while reaching for his wallet, he accidentally passes gas. "The blind employee's ears twitch and he says, that is a Duck Master Duck call and costs $5.49." The blind employee then sniffs the air and states "The catfish bait is $1.99. Will there be anything else?" Many ethnic jokes get propagated because of stereotypes based upon historical situations. The stereotype that all Poles are stupid stems from the bravery of the Polish Army during the German invasion of Poland prior to World War II. Poland was defended by an army of Calvary soldiers mounted on horseback. The Polish Army did not have tanks, but was forced to defend their country against the Germans who were attacking with tanks. Of course the out gunned Polish Army was defeated and most were killed as solders mounted on horses repeatedly charged the tanks and most died very valiantly. Some in the world viewed their obvious courage and heroism as stupidity. In honor of the bravery of the Polish Army in the face of overwhelming odds, we will tell the following joke as a Polish joke. Stanislav and Lech are sitting in a bar talking. Stanislav decides to share an intimate secret with his new friend. He says surreptitiously "Lech, I have to confess. I had sex with my wife before marriage. How about you?" Lech says "I don't know. What was her maiden name?" Boomer Philosophy on Global Warming: We have updated our information on Global Warming again with some interesting comments by Penn Jillette the vocal magician in the Penn and Teller magic act. Please note that we believe that companies like ours, who would be impacted by the proposed Cap and Trade legislation, have a civic responsibility to let the people know the facts about global warming. If WigJig ignores the problems that Cap and Trade create for businesses then we are partially responsible for any bad legislation that results. For those who are interested in some facts about global warming please select here. If reading facts about global warming and the impact of Cap and Trade legislation on business is unpleasant for you, we are sorry, but we believe that we have a civic duty to report our understanding of the facts. We had one subscriber to our last newsletter who very rudely asked to be removed from our newsletter mailing list. We did that for her and we are happy to do that for anyone. Announcements: Shipping Policy. We waive the shipping charge on orders over $60 shipped within the US (as long as these orders remain over $60). For International orders we ship via Global Priority Mail and charge $5 over the US Mail charge for this shipping service. Please select here to view our entire shipping policy. WigJig University. We provide over 2,700 web pages of free information, tips, techniques and free jewelry making designs in WigJig University. We encourage everyone to view this information as a source for new ideas, projects, or a way to learn new techniques. We now have a page in WigJig University that shows our designs sorted by the WigJig tool used to make them. Please select here to view that information. International Vendors. We do have vendors who sell our WigJig products outside the US. We encourage customers to contact these vendors in their home country. Please select here to view our list of overseas vendors. We are also happy to sell our WigJig tools to stores. Please send us an e-mail if you are interested in selling our WigJig tools. Classes. We have a listing of various jewelry making classes using our WigJig tools that are offered by bead stores throughout the country. If you are interested in classes, please select here. If you know someone who has classes in using our WigJig tools, please ask them to send us an e-mail at custsrv@wigjig.com so that we can include them in these pages. We are continuing to improve our newsletter, so please feel free to provide feedback at custsrv@wigjig.com. SHIPPING WAIVED ON ORDERS OVER $60.00 SHIPPED TO USA - Customer Care - WigJig, PO Box 5124, Gaithersburg, MD 20882; (800) 579-WIRE (phone), (240) 597-2262 (fax), custsrv@wigjig.com (email). Privacy Policy. All content on this web site including jewelry and wire designs are copyrighted© by WigJig. WigJig® is a registered trademark. Last modified: 06/02/2009 |
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