Single Bead Wirework Pendant

When I get an idea for a pendant, I sketch it out and make it. Sometimes it turns out just the way I want it to, sometimes it doesn't. This is the perfect example of a pendant that didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.

This pendant was the first attempt for my christmas gift exchange. Because of that, I couldn't just stop after a failed attempt. Luckily, my second try turned out just the way I wanted it to. The instructable on that pendant can be found here.

You may be wondering why I am posting an instructable on something I consider a fail, but instructables are there for others to learn from. In every step I don't just tell what I did, but also what I should have done.

I personally think it is really helpful to have a sketch when making a pendant, simply to get a better idea of how possible your pendant might be.

A bit of explanation to go with my sketch: The two circles are to be joined by weaving wire between them. A single bead dangles in the middle from a piece of chain.

After making the sketch, you can quickly make a list of all things needed:

- a mandrel/two round objects the right size

- wire, two different gauges (gauge 20/0,81 mm and gauge 26/0,4 mm)

- pliers

- a bead

Take two parts of the gauge 20 wire and bend two circles, one just slightly bigger than the other.

This is where it starts to get dodgy. I cut off one side of the wire at the overlapping point, hoping the two ends would align just the way I wanted them to. As you can see in the last picture, the last part of the wire is just not right.

What would have been a much better technique, is cutting both wires at once, at the line shown in the second picture. That way (also a way to create jump rings), the ends will align much better, giving you the roundness you want.

To prevent the ends of the wire from separating while I was wrapping, I took a bit of clear tape and wrapped it around the joint. I then wrapped the 26 gauge wire around the outer circle and started wrapping. Almost as soon as I started wrapping, the tape started moving, not holding the ends together at all.

You might ask yourself, why did you try it with tape? Well, I wanted to keep the pendant as attainable for everyone wanting to make it. But, just solder the ends together, that really is the best solution here.

After noticing the wire wasn't staying on, I took it off. As I continued wrapping, the ends of the outer circle started separating more and more. This made it impossible to get a nice and clean wrap.

Again, if I would have soldered the connection, there wouldn't have been any problem here.

After wrapping about a fifth of the circle, I tried to work away the wire in the coil, something I did successfully before. But, the wirework was too widely spaced for this to go unnoticed.

Of course, while I still had to wrap about a quarter of the pendant, I ran out of wire. I cut off the wire and flattened the remaining bits.

There isn't really a way to prevent your wire from ending, best option is cutting off a very long piece to begin with.

Since I needed to wrap the remaining part and add the bead, I decided to combine those two. Using a bit of wire and my mandrel, I shaped the wire to fit into the remaining void of the circle.

I should just have stuck with the sketch here, by wrapping with a new bit of wire and adding the chain with the bead afterwards. This would have saved me from doing a lot of unnecessary steps.

Using the mandrel, I shaped the wire to make the bead go in the middle of the pendant.

Continuing last step, I shaped the wire until I had a place to put my bead.

After a lot of shaping and fitting, I used round nose pliers to create a setting for the bead.

Once the bead was added to the setting, I wrapped the wires on both sides around it to prevent the bead from just falling out.

To give you a better impression of the way I wrapped the wire. around the bead, I took pictures from multiple angles.

Now I could finally test if my finished setting would fit. After making a few small modifications, (it was a few mm too wide) it fitted perfectly.

To make sure the jump ring can be added, I started my final bit of wire wrapping by coiling around the outer circle a few times.

I had originally planned to do this for the inner circle so I could add the chain, but I'm glad I was still able to use the technique.

After the coiling bit was finished, I just continued wrapping like before.

After wrapping a bit of wire, I took a look at the pendant and decided I didn't like the look of the bead yet. I took the end of the wire used to set the bead and gave it a bit of a swirl.

Once I was satisfied with the way the bead looked, I continued wrapping. Due to me not being focussed anymore, it got really sloppy and just doesn't look right.

To give the pendant a bit more of a continuous look, I coiled the wire around the top bit of the bead setting a few times before cutting off the wire.

This is something I think I would have wanted to do for the original sketch as well, but then with the piece of chain. I really think it makes the pendant look more complete.

Lately I haven't really used jump rings to end a pendant, but these '8' shapes. They are really sturdy and just as simple to make/use as a jump ring. Simply add it to the empty place on the pendant and it is done!

So, after all those mistakes, I did learn something from making this pendant:

Don't try to use a simple substitute for soldering. It won't turn out the way you want it to.

After all, I think I created an okay looking pendant, I hope you found this instructable useful!