Jewelry Findings: Keys to Any Piece of Jewelry

Jewelry Findings is a term that was coined in the old world. It signifies all the components that are employed in the creation of jewelry, and consists of items like clasps, crimps, earrings and metal beads. The following are some of the more important pieces of jewelry findings that are relevant these days.

Rings: Although one can prepare rings oneself by winding some wire round and round a mandrel and saw or cut it into a ring, commercially created rings are homogeneous in shape and have a clean cut appearance. Rings or wires come in various consistencies like soft, hard and half hard. Do not use soft in the making of jump rings as it does not bear the appropriate consistency for them and will not retain their shape for long.

However, a jump ring remains a crucial component in the making of jewelry. The jewelry technique termed chain mail where you intertwine jump rings with one another resulting in patterns that are extremely exquisite to behold. Some dealers in jewelry findings sell jump rings too in shapes such as heart, oval and triangular.

Head- and eyepins: Besides jump rings, head- and eyepins are the most extensively used jewelry    findings. While eyepins are looped at the end and so are used to link various parts of a piece of jewelry together, a headpin is in fact a small length of wire fitted with a stopper at one end, to stop beads from sliding off.

It is possible to make one’s own head- as well as eyepins effortlessly by drawing a loop on a small piece of wire or by simply hammering flat the end of the wire , making a twirl and bending it. Both headpins and eyepins can be had in diverse lengths, gauges and hardness.

Crimps and crimp covers: Crimps are essentially metal pearls or tiny metal tubes intended to fasten a clasp to beading wires. A crimp grips the loop made on a beading wire firmly closed, preventing the slipping off of the clasp. By using crimp pliers, it is possible to squeeze crimps into small balls. If there are no crimp pliers at hand, a mere squeeze will turn it flat with chain-nose pliers. Once they become flat, the edges tend to get sharp making it quite uncomfortable to wear, but a crimp cover can solve the problem.

Wire guardian: A wire guardian is meant to safeguard the beading wire from day-to-day wear and tear. When a wire guardian is used the wire has no contact with the clasp, thus doing away with any strain on it.

Earring findings: Earrings are available in an extremely wide variety of kinds, sizes and shapes, the common ones being earring posts as well as French hook or fish hook- styled earrings. As to earring posts, they should be secured behind one’s ears by means of comfort pads or ear nuts. However, a fish-hooked earring is made from wire, in the shape of a fishhook, having a loop at the front so that a bead or component can be attached to it. One only needs to slide the hook through one’s earlobe and its unique shape will keep it in place.