Whenever I'm making jewelry, I typically wind up using crimp beads (with toggle closures, in most cases). Whenever I cut off the beading wire at the end, after enclosing the crimp bead around it, there's always this itsy bitsy part of the wire that irritates me to no end when I wear the jewelry. It seems that I can only cut the wire so much before I wind up snipping at the crimp bead. How can I remedy the irritation fact of the left-over wire?Maybe put glue on the wire piece and let it dry? Idk. Grr.
Here is the way to get rid of the scratchy wire: Take the wire on through the crimp bead and thread it down into the beads, and then crimp the wire. If you have a little wire sticking out there on down between the beads, just bend back the beads, and clip it with your jewelry wire cutters that have a side edge. Be sure and cut your wire with a couple inches to spare so you have enough wire to attach the clasp and thread the wire down. I was having trouble with the crimp bead scratching, no matter how I crimped it. I found out that they sell a crimp cover. It looks like an open clam shell, and you just slip it over the crimp bead, and close it with pliers. Beware, there is something called a clam shell, but it has a eye on it, it is for non-metal stringing materials. Another thing I found was a little tiny horseshoe called a guide. It goes above the crimp bead, and holds the clasp. It protects the wire from the wear and tear of the clasp. And it is so easy to pull the wire through it once it is on, you can adjust the length of the wire over and over. I was literally stuffing the wire down into the beads with a pliers. No more! Just pull on the end, and down the wire goes. No more ugly lengths of wire between the beads and the crimp bead. I found both these items in gold and silver colors, at Michaels, and Craft etc on line, and on other online sites. So, save the glue for working with elastic cord and gluing a bead over the knot to hide it.
Depending on the size of the hole in the beads, I usually run the wire down throw about 2 inches worth of beads; then crimp and clip. This also ensures that if the necklace if caught and pulled you have about 2 inches of slack before you are chasing beads on the floor. If you hole in the beads are small you can do two different things. 1) find a coordinating bead with larger holes that you can end the necklace with on both sides of the catch 2) Be sure your wire is running straight back down the original wire after going through the crimp, then crimp and clip.The end of the wire will be straighter and not tend to go out to the side and punch your neck. And unfortunately there is not a solution every time.
