You've threaded a bead onto a headpin, picked up your round nose pliers, and twenty minutes later you've got a loop that looks more like a question mark. Sound familiar? Simple loops are one of the first things everyone learns in wire jewellery, and one of the first things that goes wrong. The good news is it's almost always down to a couple of small habits, not your hands.
Here's how we'd show you across the counter, step by step, with the tools that make it easier.
What you'll need
You can make a simple loop with just two pairs of pliers and something to cut with:
- Round nose pliers to form the loop. Both jaws are smooth, tapered cones, so where you grip on the jaw decides how big the loop is. Our 5" comfort-grip round nose pliers are a good first pair.
- Chain nose pliers to make the first bend and to open and close the finished loop. Smooth jaws are best here because serrated ones can mark soft wire. The smooth jaw chain nose pliers do the job nicely.
- Wire cutters, or a pair of chain nose pliers with a built-in cutter if you'd rather keep your kit small.
- A headpin or eye pin, a bead, and a fine marker pen (trust us on the pen).
Step by step: making a simple loop
1. Bend the wire at a right angle. Slide your bead onto the headpin. Grip the wire just above the bead with your chain nose pliers and push the wire over the top of the jaw so it bends to 90°. That little bit of jaw thickness leaves a tiny gap above the bead, which gives the loop room to sit straight.
2. Trim the tail. Cut the bent wire so you're left with roughly 1 cm sticking out sideways. Too long and you'll get a spiral rather than a loop. Too short and the loop won't close.
3. Grip the very end. Take your round nose pliers and grip the tip of the wire tail, so the end is just flush with the outside of the jaws. Don't let it poke out past them.
4. Roll, don't pull. Turn your wrist towards you, rolling the wire round the jaw. You'll usually only get part of the way round before your wrist runs out of room. Let go, rotate the pliers back to the start position, grip the loop again in the same spot on the jaw and keep rolling until the end meets the bend.
5. Centre the loop. If the loop looks off to one side, hold it in your round nose pliers and give it a gentle bend back at the neck so it sits directly over the bead, like a lollipop.
Why loops come out uneven (and how to fix it)
Most of the trouble we hear about comes from the same few things:
- Gripping a different spot on the jaw each time. Round nose jaws taper, so a millimetre up or down changes the loop size. Put a small marker line on the jaw where you like your loops and always line the wire up with it. It wipes off with a bit of alcohol when you want a different size.
- Trying to make the loop in one go. Forcing it round in a single twist pulls the wire out of shape. Two or three short rolls give a rounder result.
- Skipping the right-angle bend. Without it, the loop leans and the bead wobbles about.
- Opening the loop the wrong way. To attach a loop to a chain or earring hook, twist it open sideways, front to back, just like a jump ring. Pulling it open outwards wrecks the round shape and it never quite closes neatly again.
- Squeezing too hard. Soft wire like copper or silver will dent. Firm but gentle is all you need.
When stepped looping pliers make sense
If you're making a whole batch of earrings or a long beaded chain, matching every loop by eye gets tiring. That's where stepped looping pliers come in. Instead of a tapered cone, one jaw has fixed barrels in set sizes, so every loop you form on the 5 mm step comes out the same as the last. Our 5-7-10 mm stepped looping pliers are handy for larger loops, bails and rings, while the three-step flat looping pliers pair a stepped jaw with a flat one that holds the wire still while you wrap.
We'd still learn on ordinary round nose pliers first, though. They teach you how wire behaves, and they're the tool you'll reach for when you need a loop that isn't a standard size.
A couple of tips from the bench
Practise on cheap copper or craft wire before moving on to silver. A wire around 0.6 to 0.8 mm is a comfortable thickness to learn on, as very fine wire is fiddly and thick wire takes more effort to roll. And keep your pliers' jaws clean and dry; any grit on the jaws ends up as marks on your work.
You'll find round nose, chain nose and cutters in our Pliers & Cutters collection, and stepped pliers in Looping & Bail Pliers. If you're not sure which pair suits the wire you're using, just get in touch and we'll happily point you in the right direction.