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:
This week's jewelry making technique is some discussion on jewelry
wire cutters. We recently visited a bead store and while performing
demonstrations at the store we noticed that all of their cutters were dull
and marked by nicks. This is a frequent problem especially for new
wire workers. For that reason, we decided to discuss the problem, what
causes it and how it can be
 corrected.
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.
 Nostalgia Corner:
This week's featured design in our Nostalgia Corner is the design
for making our cloisonne necklaces. These necklaces are rather similar
to our Rainbow AB necklaces that we discussed in our new project for this
newsletter and the same approach for making the necklace would apply.
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.
Please select
here, or select any picture above right to view our free instructions for making
our cloisonne focal beads necklaces.
Warning! Joke Follows.
This is only a joke. We tell jokes because we are in favor of smiling,
laughing and being happy. This does not mean that we are opposed to anyone
or anything.
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:
Online Books.
If you are looking for new and interesting jewelry projects -- try one of our Online
Books. Our most detailed instructions are for sale online.
Please select
here to view our selection of online books.
These books are delivered over the Internet and there are no shipping costs
on an order with just online books.
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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