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Give It A Twist - New Copper Bangles



One of my favourite jewellery makers to watch on YouTube is Soham Harrison. His calm manner and straightforward explanations make him very easy to watch. He posts new videos regularly and I caught up with some of them a while ago.
One of the videos showed how to make twisted bangles using round wire. I make a lot of bangles in copper and silver so I'm always on the lookout for new ideas and I really liked the look of them.

They are very easy to make and basically involve annealing a length of round wire before flattening three sections of it using a rolling mill or hammer. You then anneal the wire again, fix one end into a vice and grip the other end in locking pliers and twist. The whole piece of wire turns creating twists in the flattened sections. You then cut the wire to length and make a bangle as usual. A really simple idea with very pretty results!

Here's a few I made......


...with a single twist. This was my first practice bangle with just one twist and the wire left round but given a hammered textured with the round end of the ball pein hammer.


A triple twist bangle with two hammered textured bangles.


Triple twist bangles that I will be selling singly.

I'm currently in the middle of making a pair of copper twist hoop earrings with one twisted section at the bottom. You can see I'm really getting into the twist thing! I'll photograph those as soon as they're finished.

I'm also very pleased to announce that I've finally worked out how to use locking pliers correctly. I always thought you had to tighten the screw all the way for them to work and then wondered why they didn't grip anything properly when I did it that way. Now I know you tighten the screw just enough to be able to squeeze the handles closed and then they will grip things perfectly! {I had to watch a video on YouTube to figure that one out, oh dear :D}



Comments

  1. Love these bangles. Did you know that twisted copper bangles were traditionally worn to combat nerve problems and strengthen muscle tissues?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for your comment Divya. I know some people believe copper bangles will help with arthritis but I didn't know about it helping with other things too.

      Delete
  2. They remind me of the banisters on the old stairs at my parents. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. hello

    this bangles is very awesome it is so wonderful

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love these bracelets !!! Did you solder them closed ?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very nice! What kind of copper wire did you use?

    ReplyDelete

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