Jewelry cable

[LynnK]

I purchased some of the jewelry cable, (love the waterfall pearl earrings and I've seen some lovely necklaces made with a wavy wire) and I'm having difficulty.

1) Is there a trick to unraveling it?  I've tried pulling, I've tried unwinding, and it's really tough to do.  Somewhere in here I read "It's so easy to unravel!" so I think I might be doing something wrong.

2) How do you hold beads in place? Use a crimp at the end?  The wire seems awfully thin to use crimps on.

3) Necklaces  - again, how to get a bead to stay put?  And the wire seems so thin, it just straightens out when I put beads on it.

Any assistance is appreciated!!!

Lynn
C-My Designs

[marym]

hmmm... i doubt you're doing anything 'wrong'.  You are probably just trying to unravel longer chunks of cable.  

1) For this type of cable you just have to think braids... one trick is to grip a chunk tight with one hand- then roll the ends through your fingers giving the ends a good twist.  You should get three to five mini chunks seperating from the strand this way- just pull them off carefully.  Each one of these can be twisted apart the same way for even more wavy strands.  Be carefull though- the more strands you pull off the thinner the wire will be.

2) For the pearl waterfall earrings I did use crimps at the ends- i used crimping pliers so the crimps are nie and tight.  So far they have held wonderfully- however:  

3) I would suggest making no more than 6 wavy strands from one 'chunk'.  This way the wire isn't so thin that it wont hold it's curvy shape..  Do start with the shortest amount of cable that you will need.  The longer the cable- the harder it will be to untwist.  (again- think braids).

Good luck.  Let me know if you need anything else!

-Mary

[azurefire]

Is the cable plain, or plastic coated?  I would think for this use you'd need plain, or the coating would keep it from unraveling.

[WriteBrainedWoman]

The cable has no plastic coating, and I'm betting the reason you give is exactly why! '>

Melissa

[Polly]

For those who might be wondering, there is the traditional Beadalon wire stringing cord, made of 7, 19, or 49 strands of wire, with a smooth plastic coating.  

Then there is also the new Beadalon Jewelry cable, which comes in thicker diameters and has no plastic coating.  There is 7x3 strand (3 lengths of 7-strand wire.  For most purposes, we don't recommend unraveling it all the way down to 21 skinny strands, just to 3 wavy strands that are each still 7-strand cables).  There is also the 7x7strand variety, which is what we used for the Pearl Waterfalls earrings.  This unravels nicely to 6 wavy strands, and one central straight strand (and each of these are still made of 7 strands).

I've been trying to get Mary to make a "jazz fusion" necklace where the pieces all wander apart, then go back together.  Perhaps with little beads on the unraveled explosions, and larger beads (oooh, maybe Smart Beads) on the re-wound cables.  She says it does wind back together if you're careful, but so far this has been a bigger time investment than anyone here has had.  And, I don't know if it will really work as well as the idea in my head...

--Polly

[LynnK]

 Polly, guess what I was trying to do....unravel the 7x3 down to 21 strands.  That's where all my difficulty was coming in!

I managed to get it started with just THREE strands and it seems to be holding together much better.  Time to start experimenting!!!

Thanks for the info...

Lynn

[marym]

yeah!!

Thanks Melissa and Polly- I couldn't quite diagnose that problem!!

<>  Ok polly- it's almost time to try that fusion idea- the more you mention it the more i love it- so naturally- I have to find a reason to try it very soon.  

-Mary

[Jarrod]

Jazz Fusion, I like the sound of that.