Lesson 4: How to make a golden bracelet

Today we meet again for episode 4 of our beginner's jewelry course where we will make gold colored weekly bracelets. But what is the meaning of a weekly bracelet? Semainier bracelets are bracelets or rings composed of 7 simple rings, like the 7 days of the week. They can be worn together or separately. You can add beads on them or make bracelets out of wire or metal wire without anything else. The wire for making bracelets that we are going to use is golden copper wire treated against tarnishing. This is the same wire we used in episode 2 to make beaded earrings.

The purpose of this course is to help you learn how to make jewelry while building your skills little by little. In this lesson, you will be able to use the leftover materials and tools from previous lessons. Remember to keep 3 mother of pearl pucks and 1 to 3 stopper beads for the fifth and last lesson of the season.

1- Which wire to choose to make metal bracelets?

Soft, semi-hard or hard wire

To make bracelets or rings, you will need to use a metal wire. The harder and larger the wire, the more difficult it will be to form. Conversely, the softer and thinner the wire, the easier it will be to form, but the more easily it will deform when worn. Therefore, hard wire is ideal, but we recommend starting with soft wire if you are a beginner. The more you practice shaping the wire into a bracelet, the easier it will be to use harder wire.

Choosing wire material

In this lesson, we recommend that you practice with the copper wire we used in the previous lesson. Why this one in particular? Because it is soft enough to be used by beginners and strong enough not to deform when worn. Also, being anti-tarnish treated, it is of good quality and has a good quantity/price ratio. This means you'll have enough length of wire to practice on.

Copper wire is an inexpensive and flexible option, perfect for beginners. It also comes in silver. Other types of wire can be used:

• Gold filled wire is a brass wire coated with a thicker layer of gold than gold plated. It is a very durable wire but it is expensive.
• 925 silver wire is a good silver and hypoallergenic option. However, silver is a metal that oxidizes and needs to be cleaned regularly.
• Stainless steel is a little darker than silver but as its name indicates, it does not oxidize and is very resistant over time. However, it is a very hard metal and very difficult to form.

Wire diameter

The ideal is to take a wire between 0.6 and 1 mm. You can of course use a thicker wire, but this will complicate the closing system. Indeed, if the clasp loop is larger, you will have to use larger rings as well, or make a more visible wire clasp. If you do soldering, that's a different story, you'll need to learn professional jewelry making and equip yourself with the proper machinery and tools. You can take a look at our courses on professional jewelry making to get a better idea.

2- Putting a clasp on a wire bracelet

As explained in the video, there are basically two ways to add a clasp to a wire bracelet. You can either form loops on each side of the bracelet and add a ready-made clasp, or form a hook system with a loop on one side and a wire hook on the other. This is the second method we chose, but there is nothing to stop you from doing the first. If you are interested, it has been presented in more detail in this tutorial: DIY Gold Filled 14K Gold Wire Bracelet.

It is also possible to form beaded bracelets without clasps. In this case, you need to make wider beads so that you can easily put them on without opening them. This is the technique that was used in this tutorial 925 silver bracelet.

3- Tools to make the weekly gold bracelets

The Cutter Flush pliers

The Cutter Flush is a very precise cutter that allows you to cut metal wires cleanly and as close as possible to the winding of the wire on the bracelet for example. Be careful not to use it with stainless steel wire or memory wire, as these wires are very hard and will damage the blades of the pliers. With the latter, use a pair of shears.

Ring making pliers

These pliers serve the same purpose as round-ended pliers, but instead of having cone-shaped tips, thinner at the tip and thicker at the base, they are made of two cylinders of uniform size. This makes it possible to form loops that are always the same size. It also makes it possible to create rings that will all have the same size.

The triboulet

There are triboulets for rings and others for bracelets. They can be made of wood or metal. They are used to shape and measure rings and bracelets. This tool will come in very handy if you want to start selling handmade jewelry. If you don't need it regularly, you can always use everyday objects to shape your bracelets. For example a glass or a candle.