Crimp Beads and Crimp Tubes provide a secure and professional finish to beading cord and cable. Plus, they're a cinch to use once you get the hang of it! Most crimp beads and crimp tubes are designed for securing the ends of stringing cable (also known as beading wire). Some larger styles are designed for stretchy cord or heavy-gauge wire. While crimp beads are almost identical to crimp tubes, some crimp tubes are longer, giving you more crimping surface for extra security.
Crimp Covers easily sit atop a crimped bead or crimp tube, looking like a small round spacer bead. They help your design look and feel more professional, because they can hide minor imperfections in your crimping style, and they cover scratchy cable ends, when your end beads are too tiny for you to run the cable back through them.
Wire Protectors may not be necessary for every design, but they add extra protection for people who are hard on their jewelry, and they add a more finished look (especially when the color of your cable or cord doesn't match as well as you'd like it to).
Scrimps by Beadalon are like durable crimps with tiny built-in screws that you can tighten and loosen without kinking or restringing your designs. Not everyone needs this feature, but if you do, it can save you a ton of time and headaches!
To finish a necklace or bracelet with crimp beads:
- String a crimp bead onto the beading cable, then string a clasp.
- Optional: Add bullion or a wire protector.
(Wire Protectors can help prevent fraying on designs that get a lot of movement, or simply hide the color of your beading wire.) - Loop the cable back through the crimp bead.
- Tighten up the loop, but not too tight! Use flat-nose pliers to flatten the crimp, or use crimping pliers to crimp the bead into a small rounder crimp.
- Trim the excess cable.
- If desired, use large crimping pliers to close a crimp cover over the crimp bead.
See Also:
