Help me! I'm looking for strong wire to string beads...
Re: Help me! I'm looking for strong wire to string beads... -- shinji Post Reply Edit Forum Where am I?
Posted by: Joyce Mail author
07/21/2014, 23:26:54

Would like to know more about the project you have in mind, Shinji.
I like Rosanna's idea for a torque with thick heavy wire, sometimes it could be just the thing, but you would have to be careful to try and prevent the beads from getting damaged. Sometimes you can "stuff" the holes if there is room by wrapping the stringing material with soft thread, and literally pushing more material into the beads from the sides with a needle...

While I like Stefany's approach of using as many threads as the beads will accept, I don't always use beads of exact same size perforations. That is where the wrapping and stuffing is helpful. I've done necklaces where the bead holes vary from 2mm up to 10mm or slightly more.

My long time favorite stringing material is artificial sinew, especially for trade beads. It can be split to thinner widths if needed. When tying it off, you need to leave a 3/8" tail and singe the knot with a low flame, being careful to not melt the knot itself!

Another thread I love is called C-Lon, popular in the last 8 years or so.
It is a kind of polyester or nylon, comes in many great colors and is not expensive. It doesn't keep stretching like Conso, a thread originally made for the upholstery industry, I believe. C-Lon has become popular with micro-macrame artists because of the great colors and not stretching like Conso.

There are so many products these days that I haven't even tried! Have recently bought some of the thread marketed for Kumihimo and like that stuff too!

Re. Softflex - those people are in our area, and their stringing cable definitely rules. It even comes in sterling plate and gold plate, very pretty. But I have had the thinnest weight, the .10, break right at the crimp without the necklace having much use at all. The crimping tool out in the last 10 or 12 years sure makes the crimp look better than it used to, and there are nice looking crimp covers out now too. I don't use the stainless stringing cable a lot but sometimes it's most convenient, at least for jewelry I don't sleep in. I don't like the idea of sleeping with steel cable around my neck.



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