Making your own jump rings

[Peacock]

Has anyone ever tried this?
My latest thing is making chains - and I am sure it must be cheaper to make your own jump rings rather than buying in bulk, particularly as I love using sterling silver. I have found plenty of instructions on the web, but was just wondering how easy it is in practice to make decent quality rings - especially using a heavy gauge wire...
...any experiences to share?

[momoab]

It is easy to make the very jump rings, find yourself something to wind the annealed wire arround skrewdriver for instance, make a whole in it little bit bigger than the wire to put the beggining and after you wind it cut with the saw. It takes more tools and skills to make the wire itself if you are interested in what kind of tools you may need ask i will make you a list.
"Riogrande" sells some cheap specially modified tools for making jump rings, we use them but one can do without.

Regards from sunny Bulgaria
Momchil

[icecreamgirl]

Hiya, ive never made my own jump rings, but am a bit confused by the above post...
Surely a screwdriver is too big to wrap the wire round? And a saw seems a bit excessive, surely you would just use wire cutters?
I'm sure it's quite easy, there are jewellery makers on here, sure they will be along to help soon....

[JBJB]

I'm trying to think of who the person is who does the chain-maille (spelling?) jewellery on here? I'm sure she/he makes their own s/s jump-rings?

Sorry can't be of much use - I only make costume jewellery so tend to buy in bulk.

If you find out, make sure you post your results....

[Mary]

At Jewellery night class we were taught to wrap the wire round something (like a screwdriver or anything else reasonably long and straight and the right size), then to slide the wire off and, holding the coil on a wooden peg, use a jewellers saw (kind of like a hack saw but with a blade with very fine teeth) to cut up the length of the coil.

I was always useless at it, though others seemed to master it quite easily, or at least it seemed that way to me. I prefer to buy mine ready made, but that is almost certainly because I was so cr*p at it :D

[clair]

I have seen a tool om ebay to make jump rings, never tryed it myself

[Peter]

The reason for using a saw instead of wire cutters, is that a saw will give you a flat end on the ring, whereas wire cutters will give you that chiselled bevel end. Even flush cutters will give a bevel on one side. :)

[benchaddict]

Hi Peacock.
I am a bench jeweller in Nottingham and I have some useful URL references which might help you, picture tutorials on cutting jump rings &etc. Unfortunately I am not allowed to post them as I have not posted here 25 times so I am contacting you off list.

If anyone else would like the info please feel free to contact me.

Cheers from Ruth.

tambling@ntlworld.com

[Fran]

Hi Peacock,

Making jump rings can be as easy and made in various ways. Here's one if your on a budget.

Someone mentioned wrapping wire around a screwdriver, that's not as mad as it seems. When I first started doing them .......

I would wrap my wire around knitting needles (you could get all the different ID sizes from a good set of knitting needles) do not use wooden dowels as the wire will mark and start to embed in the soft wood.

Remove the coil from the knitting needle/or any other dowel that you use, use a jewellers saw with a no. 02 file to saw through the coil, using a saw will allow you to get a more professional finish than using flush cutters, when you use flush cutters you have to cut the other side of the ring that will be left with a pointed edge to it, therefore you will be making the ring smaller, this is important not to do with certain chainmaille patterns.

After you have cut the rings you can either hand file the ends of the rings with a nail file/ jewellers file or if you have a tumbler then throw them in for a good few hours, (I usually have mine tumbling overnight) this will give you a nice clean edge having taken the burrs away that the saw had left, (as it would if you were sawing wood)



If you are only looking for a few rings at a time to be used as jump rings and nothing to do with chainmaille then the flush cutters would be fine.

The practice is the same regardless of wire guage, In my early days I've made 14g (american gauge) byzantine bracelets with this method.

Give it ago and have fun.

Hope this is of some help

Fran

[Peacock]

Thanks for all the advice everyone.
I am getting addicted to making chain maille jewellery at the moment, so am getting through an awful lot of jump rings - getting to the point where perhaps it would be best to invest in some kit and start making my own...