Tool Tips: Round Hollow Pliers

Why add round hollow pliers to your tool kit?  Let's say you want to make a lot of bead links, and you'd like the loops to be consistent in shape and size, but you've never been that good at measuring and looping and that kind of thing.  Round hollow pliers to the rescue! 

Round hollow pliers: indented jaw on the bottom, round jaw on top

We use round hollow pliers primarily to make loops in memory wire.  Memory wire, being a hardened steel wire, is pretty stiff.  If you use it a lot it can take quite a toll on your wrist to make all those end loops.

​The hollow jaw of the pliers starts making the loop when you squeeze the pliers closed so you don't have to twist your wrist as much to finish the loop.

Making a loop in memory wire

First, to make consistently sized loops, use a permanent marker to make a line on the pliers so you always place the wire at the same place (you can do this with your round nose pliers too). 

Use permanent marker on the pliers

Now you want to make your right angle in the wire -- how do you judge where?  Here is the lazy person's measuring technique:  extend the tip of the wire a little past the bottom jaw, then bend the longer side down against the pliers to make your right angle.

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The lazy person's measuring technique: make a right angle with the tip of the wire extending a bit beyond the lower jaw

​Now bring the tip of the wire back so it just barely touches the lower jaw.

Prepare to make the loop: move the tip of the wire so it barely touches the lower jaw

Squeeze the pliers to push the wire into the bottom jaw, and rotate the pliers to continue to make the loop.

Squeeze to begin the loop . . .

. . . and rotate the pliers to complete the loop

See?  Nice round loops!

Round loops, side 1

For side 2, add your bead and place the wire on the pliers, adding a little extra space between the bead and the bottom jaw.  Cut excess wire that extends beyond the bottom jaw.

Lazy person's measuring, side 2: leave extra wire between the bead and lower jaw, and trim excess

Make your right angle bend at the top of the bead, place the wire on the bottom jaw as you did for the first loop, and squeeze.  

Repeat steps to make the loop

And look -- now you have your bead links with nice round, consistently sized loops!  You may need to experiment when using different gauges of wire -- heavier wire takes more length to make the same size loop.  But for those of us who are wire-challenged, this is a good way to add more consistency without having to think too hard.  Happy looping!

Bead links, ready to become jewelry!