How to Close a Crimp Bead

Crimping is a technique used to secure beading wire. It's commonly used to connect clasps, although it can also be used as a design element, too. Basically, it involves crushing a metal bead or coil onto the wire, to hold it in place. Here's how you do it!

Crimping is one of the easiest, neatest ways to finish wire for jewelry. To try it, you need beading wire (Tigertail.), wire cutters, crimping or flatnose pliers, and crimp beads. Crimp beads are metal tube beads. There are a variety of finishes available.

You string a crimp bead like a normal bead, except you bring your wire end back through it again (from the same side, doubling back so the wire end now points toward your jewelry). You want your wire and crimp beads to be sized such that the wire barely doubles back through the crimp. You can't use a crimp if the wire won't fit through it. On the other hand, if your wire is much finer than the crimp, it is hard to get a secure 'hold' on the wire and you could get slippage through the crimp bead, ruining your work.

Here's a photo of crimping pliers. Yes, they are a relatively expensive, specialized tool. However, if you find yourself doing crimping on a regular basis I think they are well worth it. You can get great results with flatnose pliers, too, although it takes a bit more finesse.

Here's a close-up of the crimping pliers. Notice that the jaws have two sets of 'bumps'. Once you have your wire where you want it in the crimp bead, position the crimp bead within the inner depression of the crimping pliers (will have a little 'v' on one side and a semicircle on the other side: these are the dips closest to the handle of the pliers).

You will squeeze your pliers so that one wire is on one side of the 'v' and the other wire is on the other side. If you are using flatnose pliers, you simply want to squeeze your pliers to compress the crimp bead onto the wire so the wire doesn't slip. Here's a photo of what the crimping pliers have accomplished after this step.

To ensure that the wire won't slip, you need to compress the bead in the other direction. With the crimping pliers, this involves positioning the crimp inside the dip closest to the end of the pliers. You want the 'dip' part of the crimp in the middle, with the wire-containing parts of the crimp fitted into the depressions on the pliers. Compressing the pliers will bend the crimp in on itself. You do the same thing with flatnose pliers, except it's a bit harder to position the crimp so that it bends the way you want it to go. Here's close-up of a finished crimp. It looks a lot like the previous photo, except the depression between the wires has been closed in on itself. The total diameter of this crimp bead is around one millimeter, which is about the same size as a size 11 seed bead. Pretty tiny, huh! Like all techniques, practice makes perfect. It's always a good idea to have a few extra crimp beads for a project, just in case you aren't pleased with your first attempts. The crimp beads need to be tightly compressed. If you don't apply enough force, the wires will slip. If you apply too much force, it is possible to break a crimp or to sever your wire. If you apply uneven force (more common with flatnose pliers) then your crimps won't have a smooth appearance.