Simple Wire Wrap Jewelry Findings With 3D Printed Jigs

After making my previous Instructable about wire wrapped circle earrings, I realized it was hard to find the circles I would want to make these. I decided to take a stab at making my own. You can use various materials for bending the wires, but I thought it would also be fun to use Tinkercad to make a jig to work with that would help you get the same size every time.

You can kind of think of this as a prequel to the previous Instructable.

Instructable 379

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Supplies

If you are going to make your own jigs for shaping your wires, you'll need a CAD program, I recommend Tinkercad, 3D Printer, and Filament.

Jewelry Making Supplies:

Jewelry Pliers- Round ones are good for the loop and needle nose ones are good for the jump rings.
Nylon Covered Jewelry Pliers - not necessary but helpful with color coated wires
Wire Cutter - make sure they are strong enough to cut the type of wire you use.
Earrings
BASE: Stainless Steel 20 Gauge / .81 mm
DECORATION: Aluminum Wire - 20 gauge or .8mm is what I used from this pack for my Rainbow ones, and I used 22 gauge Stainless Steel for the all silver small ones

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Step 1: Create Jigs Using Tinkercad

This was pretty simple.

I created circles I in the sizes I wanted. At first I kind of made them willy nilly, but then I found it was better to make them in increments I' used to AND label them! I gave them a bit of a base to make it easier to get the wire to stay on while you're bending it but also slide off when you're done.

When slicing and printing, I increased the Perimeter count to 4 and the Infill Percentage to 50% to make sure they wouldn't crumple or get damaged.

Slice, print, and done!

Step 2: Bend the Loop

Start by bending a loop. This is where you will attach to the earring.

I've done this a few times and I prefer the look of starting a loop without twisting (as shown) but it is easier to hold it for the next step if you twist it and leave a tail.

Step 3: Bend Your Hoop

Once you have your loop, hold your piece on your jig and bend your wire around it.

I looped it around 3 times because that seemed like a good amount, but do whatever you'd like.

Once you have it around enough times, carefully hold it and bend the wire around the base of the original loop to hold it in place.

If your wire is strong and thick, once around should be enough. Cut off the access. You can also go back and trim down the other end of the wire if you'd like.

If the wire is thinner you may need to wrap it a couple times to make sure it stays.

Step 4: Decorate!

You can now decorate it as you want.

As mentioned, in my previous design, I criss crossed the colored wire.

I decided to try something different, more simple this time. I took my wire and wrapped it 5 times in little spots around the circle.

For my first pair, I started simply with just using thinner stainless steel wire and wrapped it in three spots.

I made sure that my wire started and stopped in what I determined was the back of the earring. There is no avoiding having a beginning and end so I decided it was best to just accept it and have them be in the back.

Step 5: Rainbow Pairs

I actually used Tinkercad to help me plan out the spacing of the wires for the rainbow pairs. This helps you see if the number of colors you want to use WOULD work for the size of your hoop and giving you an idea on how far the wires will be spaced.

To start my planning, I decided about how wide 5 wraps is (5mm) and how many different colors I would use (9 colors) did some math, and then copied and pasted rectangles to signify the colors on the circle. Since it's an odd number, I did some fancy copy/pasting around and then kind of shrunk them so they didn't go all the way across. ANYWAY, this just gives you a better idea of where they will be. If you do an even number, it's easier.

When it came time to wrap, I found it helped to start with directly across from the loop (green) as this helps hold the wires together, then do the top two (red and pink), then just start doing the colors that were in between (yellow and dark blue), then fill in the last of the colors (orange, light green, light blue, and purple).

Though, if you are doing random colors, just use these colors as reference points.

Step 6: Add Earring

Since the loop is already lined up, you don't need jump rings (unless you want them). Just attach your earring right to the top lop.

Step 7: Glue?

Since the wires are just sitting on there and aluminum is so flexible, I decided to dab some super glue on the back of the colored wires to try to help stop them from coming off.