How to prevent making nicks and marks in wire?

Hello everybody!
I hope this topic has not yet been discussed to death, but I did a
search and nothing really came up, so...
How can I prevent nicks and marks from my pliers when I work with
wire?
I have tried several things that were suggested to me: I put both
masking tape and duck tape over the plieres. (Not at the same time, of
course.) While that was good in the beginning, the surface of both
eventually got destroyed and there wasn't really any protection any
more. Plus, the sticky stuff made the wire all nasty and slippery, so
it was actually harder to get a good grip. (And I had to clean the
sticky stuff off afterwards.)
Now somebody suggested to superglue thin leather on the gripping
surfaces of my pliers. Haven't yet tried it and hope for some input
from you. Does anybody know a foolproof solution? Thanks in advance.
Jennamyria

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 19:22:52 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry
(Jen) wrote:

Hello everybody!
I hope this topic has not yet been discussed to death, but I did a
search and nothing really came up, so...
How can I prevent nicks and marks from my pliers when I work with
wire?
I have tried several things that were suggested to me: I put both
masking tape and duck tape over the plieres. (Not at the same time, of
course.) While that was good in the beginning, the surface of both
eventually got destroyed and there wasn't really any protection any
more. Plus, the sticky stuff made the wire all nasty and slippery, so
it was actually harder to get a good grip. (And I had to clean the
sticky stuff off afterwards.)
Now somebody suggested to superglue thin leather on the gripping
surfaces of my pliers. Haven't yet tried it and hope for some input
from you. Does anybody know a foolproof solution? Thanks in advance.
Jennamyria

No one foolproof solution, but for larger plier jaw sizes, you can get them with
nylon surfaced jaws. Also, there are several suggestions in the thread called
" I need a very small plier with nylon jaws....", which was started a couple
days ago in the rec.crafts.jewelry newsgroup. I, and several others, posted
suggestions to what is, essentially the same question.

Hope that helps.

Peter Rowe

Rio Grande sells something called "alligator skin". It's like tape, and you
wrap it around your pliers, bu then it comes off, so you can put it on and
take it off at will. I think it's great!

--
Jerri
www.beadbimbo.com

To subscribe to the Beadbimbo mailing list, send a blank email to:


"Jen" wrote in message
...
Hello everybody!
I hope this topic has not yet been discussed to death, but I did a
search and nothing really came up, so...
How can I prevent nicks and marks from my pliers when I work with
wire?
I have tried several things that were suggested to me: I put both
masking tape and duck tape over the plieres. (Not at the same time, of
course.) While that was good in the beginning, the surface of both
eventually got destroyed and there wasn't really any protection any
more. Plus, the sticky stuff made the wire all nasty and slippery, so
it was actually harder to get a good grip. (And I had to clean the
sticky stuff off afterwards.)
Now somebody suggested to superglue thin leather on the gripping
surfaces of my pliers. Haven't yet tried it and hope for some input
from you. Does anybody know a foolproof solution? Thanks in advance.
Jennamyria

Rio Grande sells special pliers....
with nylon jaws....

also - I hear you can go to the hardware store and buy that plastic tool dip
stuff.

it wears off too - but a whole can would probably last a long time....
Cheryl of A HREF="http://www.dragonbeads.com" DRAGON BEADS /A
Flameworked beads and glass
http://www.dragonbeads.com/

I have some of that Tool Magic (the plastic tool dip stuff). It works well,
lasts a long time, and it's fully removable, leaving no residue. BUT, it's
a huge PITB to put on! I've only done it once. You have to dip the pliers,
and pull them out s-l-o-w-l-y...I mean, SLOW. Then, you have to hang them
so that they dry, without touching anything, over night (I had problems with
that-the heater kicked on at night, and the slight wind sent them spinning,
and bumping into the pegboard). Then, if you want a thicker coating, you
have to do it again....

A 2oz jar cost me about $5, and it will last me forever. Probably longer,
since I'm not likely to go through that very often. It sure is fun to peel
off, tho ;o)

My friend is a successful jewelry artist, with shops on Melrose & in Fred
Segal, and her wirework often has tiny nicks or dents in it (usually in the
ends of earwires). Her stuff still sells for hundreds of dollars! I
usually only worry about it when it's in a prominent place (like a flat coil
used as decoration).

--
Kyla


also - I hear you can go to the hardware store and buy that plastic tool
dip
stuff.

it wears off too - but a whole can would probably last a long time....
Cheryl

superglue thin leather on the gripping
surfaces of my pliers. Haven't yet tried it and hope for some input
from you.

my experience with superglue and leather shows that the leather gets hard and
rather brittle.
Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery
http://www.polyclay.com

I'm not that picky. I don't worry about it.


Becki
"In between the moon and you, the angels have a better view of the crumbling
difference between wrong and right." -- Counting Crows

On 24 Nov 2003 05:25:25 GMT, eads (Cheryl) wrote:

Rio Grande sells special pliers....
with nylon jaws....

also - I hear you can go to the hardware store and buy that plastic tool dip
stuff.

It does wear off after time, but works good!
And it's easy to re-dip.
You can also use shrink-tubing. Put it on the
jaws, use a blow-dryer to shrink it. Makes a
nice pad. When it wears out, just replace it.
Alligator skin type tape works best on
protecting fingers. Since it is fabric, it can
leave tiny impressions if enough force is
exerted on the metal...
(We're talking really strong hands here...)
Barbara
Dream Master
www.dreamweaverstudio.com

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
~~ Albert Camus

Try using round nose pliers and leaving your wire long so you can use
leverage to bend it rather than another pair of pliers.

-Stanley
A&M Jewelers
Baltimore, MD

"Beadbimbo" wrote in message
...
Rio Grande sells something called "alligator skin". It's like tape, and
you
wrap it around your pliers, bu then it comes off, so you can put it on and
take it off at will. I think it's great!

--
Jerri
www.beadbimbo.com

To subscribe to the Beadbimbo mailing list, send a blank email to:


"Jen" wrote in message
...
Hello everybody!
I hope this topic has not yet been discussed to death, but I did a
search and nothing really came up, so...
How can I prevent nicks and marks from my pliers when I work with
wire?
I have tried several things that were suggested to me: I put both
masking tape and duck tape over the plieres. (Not at the same time, of
course.) While that was good in the beginning, the surface of both
eventually got destroyed and there wasn't really any protection any
more. Plus, the sticky stuff made the wire all nasty and slippery, so
it was actually harder to get a good grip. (And I had to clean the
sticky stuff off afterwards.)
Now somebody suggested to superglue thin leather on the gripping
surfaces of my pliers. Haven't yet tried it and hope for some input
from you. Does anybody know a foolproof solution? Thanks in advance.
Jennamyria

Hi Jennamyria,

How can I prevent nicks and marks from my pliers when I work with
wire?

Most times the marks you speak of are caused by the edges of the
pliers jaws. Typically, the jaw edges are a sharp 90 deg. They tend to
leave marks on wire when the wire is bent.

One way to eliminate or alleviate this problem is to round the edges
of the jaws just a little. I like to use 400 grit or finer wet dry
paper to sand the edges & remove the sharp edge.

The only other cause of marks created by wire is too strong a grip.
The way around this is to lighten your grip on the pliers. They should
be gripped just enough to prevent the wire from moving, not so much
that indentations a left in the wire. The right grip comes with
practice & experience.

Dave