The Wrapped Loop and Where the Tension Lives
Okay. Simple loop was last time. If you've been practicing that (and I hope you have, even just ten minutes with the TV on), you're ready for the wrapped loop, which is the one that actually holds things.
I feel like the wrapped loop is where everyone struggles, and I want to say that up front so you don't think it's you. The loop itself, the round part, you already know how to do. What's new is the wrap underneath it, the little coil of wire that winds down the neck of the loop and locks everything in place. That coil is where the tension lives, and tension is the whole problem.
Here's what I mean by that. A simple loop just has to look like a loop. A wrapped loop has to actually hold. If your wraps are loose, the loop can shift under weight, and eventually your pendant swings crooked or the bail opens up a little. If your wraps are too tight, you fight the wire the whole way down and it kinks. Somewhere in the middle is the tension you want, and honestly, nobody can tell you exactly what that feels like. You have to find it in your own hands.
What you're making
A wrapped loop is a loop with a little coiled neck below it, usually two to four wraps, snugged up against the top bead or stone so nothing slides around. Think of the necklaces you've had that never seem to twist funny. That's probably a wrapped loop doing its job.
Steps, in hand order
- Start exactly like your simple loop. Bend your wire ninety degrees above the stone or bead, same as before. Leave yourself extra tail this time, at least an inch and a half, more than you think you need. You'll use more wire on a wrapped loop than a simple one, and running short mid-wrap is one of the more annoying ways to ruin your afternoon.
- Grip with your round-nose pliers where you want the loop to sit, and roll the wire around one jaw to form the circle, just like before.
- Here's the new part. Instead of just letting the tail hang, you're going to hold the loop steady, usually with a second pair of pliers (chain-nose or flat-nose, whatever you've got) gripping the loop itself so it doesn't spin, and then use your fingers to wrap that tail wire around the neck, just below the loop, two to four times.
- Wrap toward the stone, not away from it. This trips people up. You're coiling down, snugging each wrap against the one above it, working your way toward the bead. If you wrap loose and spaced out, it looks sloppy and it won't hold tension. If you cram them too tight, you'll kink the wire or run out of neck to wrap on.
- Trim the tail with your flush cutters, flush side facing out, and press the cut end down against the coil with your chain-nose pliers so there's no little wire spur waiting to catch on something, or on someone's sweater, or on you.
That's it. Five steps, and step four is where you'll live for a while.
About that tension
I want to be honest with you here because I think it saves people a lot of frustration. I still can't get consistent tension on the really small tight wraps, the ones you'd need for a delicate little pendant. Mine come out a little uneven, and I've made my peace with it because at normal size, on a regular pendant or a decent-sized bead, it doesn't matter. Nobody looking at the finished piece is measuring your coil spacing with a ruler. But if you're chasing something tiny and tight, expect it to fight you. It fights me too.
The kid who got it right away
I taught my sister-in-law's teenager one afternoon last year, just the two of us at my kitchen table, and I walked her through the wrapped loop the same way I just walked you through it. She got a clean, even coil on her first try. Faster than I ever did. I was proud of her, genuinely, and also a little annoyed, which I told her, because that's fair. I'd been fighting this exact step for weeks when I started and she just sat down and did it. Some people's hands are built different. That's not a reason to feel behind if yours aren't one of them. It's just a thing that happens, and it doesn't mean anything about whether you'll get good at this.
A caution worth saying plainly
Watch your fingers when you're wrapping that coil down. You're guiding wire around wire close to your fingertips, and the cut end, before you trim it, can be sharp enough to catch skin if you're gripping hard and moving fast. Slow down on this part especially. There's no prize for speed here.
An opinion, since we're on the topic
If you make a pair of earrings with wrapped loops, they will not match perfectly, and I want you to let that go now instead of fighting it for an hour. I don't love matched sets anyway. Two earrings that are close but not identical look like a person made them, which they did. Nobody at the store is checking your wraps against each other with calipers.
Before next time, practice the wrapped loop on scrap copper until you've done it at least ten times. You'll feel the tension thing start to click somewhere around wrap six or seven, and that's usually where it stops feeling like fighting and starts feeling like a coil.