Chasing the tigertail

The tasks in this project are basically to group and string beads and practice crimping onto the tigertail.

Materials and Tools: Tigertail/Beadalon wire, crimps, beads, fastener findings

Tigertail and beadalon are the commonly used brand names for a fine nylon coated steel wire used in jewellery making. The inner is make of steel threads and these make the wire springy when released from the reel, quite firm for threading through beads and means that the wire will kink or fold if pressure applied.

Each group of beads is symetrical with the centre bead being larger, pairs of beads either side and a crimp on each side of the group. I want the crimps to hold the group in place so the outer beads need to have a centre smaller than the crimped bead.

Cut a piece of tigertail long enough for the desired project. String the centre group of beads onto the wire and allow to fall to the centre. The crimp is then closed or crimped using flat nose pliers or a crimp tool.

Flat nose pliers: Place the crimp between the jaws of the pliers and squeeze. The crimp will be flattened onto the wire. If you need to squeeze further make sure it is in the same direction or you will open the original crimp.

Crimp tool: The crimp tool has two notches, the first notch has a small dimple on one of the jaws, when the crimp is squeezed together this dimple will make a crease or fold in the crimp. The second notch can then be used to curl the ends of the squeezed crimp towards each other.