Step by Step Making a Foxtail Bracelet in Sterling Silver

1. Step By Step Making A Foxtail Bracelet Introduction by Huiyi Tan: Discover the drain of handmade jewelry. With this comprehensive course on Foxtail bracelet weaving, join me as I guide you through the entire process of creating a stunning bracelet with 11 easy to follow steps. I will walk you through the entire process from choosing the perfect material, to mastering the art of wire working. Whether you are a beginner working with wire or an experienced crafter, you will gain the skills and confidence needed to create a piece of wearable art that you are proud of. Get ready to unlock your creativity and make a statement with your handmade creations. I will see you in the class. 2. The Project: The project is to make a foxtail bracelet in solid, sterling silver. If you can take some pictures showing the process and the finished piece in the project gallery, that will be awesome. All the tools and materials you need to finish this project are listed in the PDF file. 3. Making Jump Rings: Let's get started. In this class, we are going to make 46 jumpings from the silver wire we have got. When getting your silver wire, make sure to check if it has been annealed. If they are, they will be ready to use in this project. If not, you will need to soften them. All The silver wire I use are recycled at my studio. They have been drawn to this thickness. Before using them, I will need to make them soft. First, you see that I keep moving my torch evenly around the world to avoid having any part of the wire overheat. Whenever working with the torch, I will avoid having any children around. Ideally, you are the only person in the studio or at least in a peaceful and quiet environment. In this way, you can focus on what you're doing. Also, it is really important that the area is very well ventilated. Once the wire has been softened, leave it in the open air to cool down to room temperature, then it will be ready for jumping making later. I'm using the metal stick I collected over the years. If you don't have something like this around, the simplest and most cost effective alternative is a six MM plastic knitting needle. Here I drew one MM diameter hole into the end of my metal stick. This is for my wire to grip onto when we make jumpings later with the plastic knitting needle, you can do the same. If you have a jumping maker, you can use it here, but I don't. I mount my hand drill onto the device I have in my workshop and have the hand drill hold onto my metal stick. That's my DIY jumping maker. To harss the jumpings, you simply cut them out of the coil, allow both ends to meet before soldering. Because the drumpprings are so big and the wire is only 0.9 MM diameter, you can do it with just your hands. Let's recap. In this class, you have learned how to turn the wire into dumps. If you don't have a dumping making machine, what alternative you can use to achieve the same result? In the next class, we will solder them individually. 4. Batch Solder The Jump Rings: In this class we are going to solder all the jumprings. You're going to learn how to badge solder so many jump prings in one go. First, we dip the gap of each jumping into the borax mixture and put them aside to dry as we have so many jump prings here. To make it quick, we need to badge solder them. We will use had sold here some hard solder comes in the form of a wire. Mine comes in the shape of a strip. Cut the solder out of the strip using the heavy duty shears. These shears are very robust. I got mine in 2003 and I'm still using the same pair here if you prefer. You can also buy these silver chip solder pieces in the shop as ready cut ones. They are machine cut, all will be in one size. Personally, I prefer cutting them out myself because I make other things as well. Sometimes I prefer having a bigger piece of soda, the other time I prefer a smaller one. Cutting it out myself gives me many more choices. Cut each piece to be above 1.5 M M square. No need to worry if it is not roughly will be fine. Use a pair of precision teases to lay them out on the soldering block. We're going to put one jumping on top of each piece of hard solder. Make sure the opening gap sits on top of the solder. In order to have the jumpings not overlap on top of each other, the gap needs to be a little bit bigger than the diameter of the jumpings. My ceramic honeycomb soldering block has lots of small holes. In case these tiny solder pieces fall into the holes. I lay my solder out on the back of a small crucible if your soldering block has no holes. That's ideal for soldering jumpings in this case because in that way you can lay out more than I can here. The more you can lay out, the quicker this process will be. Next, we heat up each jumper because they are so close to each other. When one is heating up, the one next will be heated up as well. This will significantly shorten the soldering time. Also with the jumping sitting on top of the solder, it will not jump away when the water on the borax evaporates. Once the solder on one jumping melts, we immediately move the fire to the next. You can see that the solder on the second jumping melts much quicker than it is on the previous one. In this way, you can get all the jumping solder much quicker. After these jumpings are soldered, make sure to only pick them up with a pair of tweezers. Definitely not your hands. You can see that there is a piece of black plastic holes with a rectangular funnel on the left side of the scene. That's my extractor. It is very important to have this installed on top of or next to your soldering station. That's for ventilation purpose. Once the jumpings are soldered, we put them on the metal surface to cool down to room temperature. In this class, you have learned how to batch solders so many jumprints efficiently. In the next class, we're going to make the first length of our bracelet. 5. Making The First Link: And with all the jumpings ready, let's make the first link of the bracelet. Put one jumping on a flat surface. Use the tip of the run nose pliers to stretch the jumping to an oval shape as the wire is not thick and it has been softened during the soldering process. This doesn't take much strength or effort. Use a pair of flat nose pliers to squeeze the center of the oval, jumping as much as possible. And then use the tip of the chain nose pliers to squeeze the center to make them go even closer. Up to this point, the oval shape is still flat. The shape looks a bit like the number eight. Change to the run nose pliers, put the tip of the pliers in halfway of this flat shape and then fold it to be like a U shape. In this process, I use the edge of my bench pin to help me push the wire. You can do it with any surface you prefer, but please be aware that it might create a dent on the surface you push against. For example, if you are pushing it against a wooden table, it will be better to avoid any soft wood because that will leave a very obvious mark on the surface. Then we use halfway down the nose of these pliers to push the two tips of this shape to meet each other like this. This is how the wire looks at this stage. One hole is bigger than the other, that's exactly how we want it to be. I use a pair of tweezers to turn it around so you can see it better. In this class, you have learned how to make the first link of your foxtail bracelet in the next. Let's make the second one. 6. Making The Second Link: In this class, we are going to make the second link for our bracelet. The first part of this process is the same as making the first one, you stretch the one jumping to an oval shape. Make the center as close as possible and then fold it in half. Instead of making the two ends meet, we bend it to about 90 degrees. When I say 90 degrees, it doesn't need to be exactly 90 degrees. It's just for guidance, 92 or 95 degrees won't make much of a difference. Roughly around 90 degrees will be fine. This is how it looks at this stage. Now you put one end of the second jumping into the bigger hole of the first link we made earlier. This is how it looks from this angle. Use the nose pliers to push the ends together like this. Here's my steel scriber. The tip is tapered and it is really sharp. Make sure you don't hurt yourself. Push the end of the scriber into these two overlap holds. They are quite narrow at the moment. Rest these two holes on the edge of the table. By pushing the scriber into the holes like this we make them under this will take a bit of force because describer is tapered. We have made one of the holes bigger than the other. We turn this around and push the scriber from the other side to make both holes more or less the same size. With the scriber still inside of the holes, we push the two ends closer with the tips of our wrong nose players. This is how they look. Now that's the second length of our chain. I use the tweets to hold them together to show you better. In this class, you have learned how to join the second link to the first one. In the next class, we're going to weave the rest of the links, and you will learn how to calculate the length of the chain for the bracelets you want. 7. Weaving All The Links: With the first two links made, we move on to the rest To make it quicker, we turn all the wrong jump prints into ovals with the wrong nose pliers all in one go squeeze them flatter. And then use a pair of one nose pliers to fold it to a U shape. Push each length through the previous one, enlarge the hole for the next one using the steel scriber. Repeat this until you reach your desired length. The clasp later will be about 34 inch long. The chain will stretch about a four inch. If you 1.8 " bracelet, you weave this chain until it reaches 7 " long. For the first five lengths, you might struggle a bit, but as it goes on, you will find it become easier and quicker to make progress. Also, because it is a repeat process, it can be very relaxing if you have your favorite music on or have an audio book playing in the background. I normally find this process very peaceful. With the last link closed, we have finished weaving this entire chain. This is how our chain looks at this stage. In this class, you have weave the entire chain and you understand how to calculate the length of the chain for your bracelet. You will know how to do it if you want to make a different one later. It is completely normal that the links are uneven and the chains is very stiff. At this stage, we will get this all sorted in the next class. 8. Making The Chain Move Freely: In this class, we are going to even out the links and make this chain move freely. First, we are going to make the links uniform by pulling the chain through a range of holes. In this way, each link will come out the same size. This is a 1 " thick wooden ball left from a DIY project. It has lots of holes on yours doesn't need to be any play. Wooden ball will be fine. The final width we are after for our chain, is four MM. The final size of our hole will be five MM diameter. However, if we pull this chain directly through a five MM hole, the length will break. To avoid this, we need to start from a bigger hole and gradually go smaller. I am not very confident using the electric drill in this size. I'm asking my husband for help to drill this wooden board for me in any of these steps. If you're not sure, don't hesitate to ask for help from either a friend or family member. It's always fun to work together. The size of the first hole is decided by the size of the widest part of your chain. At this stage, each hole goes no, 0.5 MM smaller than the previous one. In my case, the widest section of my chain measures 8.2 MM. The size for my first hole is MM. The second hole goes down half a millimeter, which is 7.5 MM. The one after is seven MM, and then 6.5 MM, six MM, 5.2 MM. And the final hole is five MM diameter, together seven holes. To make the newly cut edge smoother. We want the electric center on the surface of this wooden board for about a minute. We are doing this in the garden, It's open air. When you do it yourself, make sure it is in a well ventilated place so that you are not breathing in the wooden dust. Nothing is more important than our health With all the holes ready. Here I string a 1.2 MM of cut wire through one end of the chain we has made in the last class. This is for the draw tones to hold onto. When pulling this chain through all the holes one by one, we drag the chain through all the holes from the biggest one to the smallest one. This will gradually even up all the lengths and make them more or less the same size. To make the chain less stiff, we need the help of a steel ring mandrel. Rest the end of this mandrel into the hole on the side of my table. If you don't have a hole on your table, put a cloth on any hard surface and then resting it on top will work as well. Drop the chain backwards and forwards along the mandrel like this. Do this from one end of the chain to the other end. When it is towards the end of the chain, you can put of cut wire through the end. This will help us get a better grip of the chain. In this way, our chain will move smoothly. In this class, you have learned how to even up each length of our chain and make it less steep. In the next class, we are going to make the ends for dis, bracelets. 9. Making The End For The Bracelet: Here. I used to run dist. They are of cuts from another project. You can use any other shape as far as it is big enough to cover the end of the Basel setting, it will be fine. So the flat side onto the dist. I like to use the Beso setting to weigh the solder down because in this way they won't jump around. As the water in my box evaporates, cut off the edge sticking out. Because this dist measures only 0.5 M thick, it's faster to cut it with the metal shear than using the saw to do it. That's my personal preference. Only if you prefer using the, It works perfectly as well. To make the edges smooth, we need to use files to finish the job. If you find them too small for your fingers to hold onto, you can use a wooden ring clamp to hold it when you file these two little cups In this class, you have learned how to make the two ends for our bracelets. In the next one, we're going to make two jump rings and solder them onto the little cups we just made. 10. Making 2 Jump Rings & Solder Them On: What we're going to do in this class is very simple. We will make two small jumprings and solder them onto the center of these little cups. They are both for connecting the clasp and the chain. I'm using a pair of step pliers to help me make these jumpprings. They are very useful for making a few jump pings of the same size. I'm using the three MM diameter end to make my jumpings hold the end of the one MM wire with the tip and twist the pliers around to form more than two full circles, cut off the excess part. Now we have two perfectly wrong jumppringts, because these jumpprints are cut out of a spring shaped coil. The two ends on each jumpprints are at an angle. We use two pairs of pliers to align them before the next step. To make them attached to the flat end of the cuts better, we flatten the edge of the opening a little bit with a flat file. In this way, there will be less gap for the solder to fill. This will make the structure stronger If you find the jumping is too small to hold onto with your fingers again, you can use a wooden ing, clamp to hold onto it. When you are filing it. They will look very nice on our bracelet solder, each of them onto the center of each end cup. We have been using hard soda so far. Here we can use EC soda to make sure everything we did earlier will not be destroyed. Now our end cups both have a jumping on. In the next class, we will solder the chain onto the cups. 11. Soldering The 2 Ends Onto The Chain: We're going to use EC soda to join the chain and the cup together. You will learn how to protect the previous joints which also have EC soda on, put the end of the chain into the cup like this. If we look back, the jumpings on the cups have been soldered on using EC soda. When we use EC soda, again, the previous joints need to be protected. To do that, I put the jumping in between two soldering blocks. By hiding the jump ping, it will be harder to reach the melting points of the EC soda there. The EC soda I use here is about two MM long. I only put them on the point where the wires are touching the cup. Four pieces of soda altogether focus the fire on where the soda is. Once a tiny bit of solder melts, remove the fire. We don't want to overheat the cup, otherwise we will be risking melting the soda on the jump ring we put on earlier. Do the same on the other side. In this class, you have learned how to protect other joints with the same type of soda. On coming up, we will make a clasp and attach it to the chain. 12. Making The Clasp & Attach It To The Chain: In this class we're going to make a clasp and attach it to the chain. The wire I used here measures 1.5 MM diameter. This will make a strong and durable class for our bracelet. Use the tip of this lose pliers to hold the end of this wire. Twist the pliers around till it touches the other side of the wire. This is how it looks at this stage. Next, we move the wire to halfway up the round. Those pliers push the wire around the pliers until it reaches the circle we have just formed. This is the shape we have now. Put the wrong nose pliers into the big circle. Bend the wire away from the little circle like this. About five MM down from the bend where my nails is pointing it. Sorry for the ink on my nail, I just noticed it halfway. Making this Use the metal shears to cut it from here. This is how our clasp looks. Before putting the clasp on, I want to take the fire stain of this chain first. In this way, the chain will turn brighter and you can see it better. I put it in the pickle bath for 30 minutes, and then rinse the entire chain thoroughly in running water. To put this clasp on our chain, we push the opening of the little circle sideways. This should be big enough to slide the jumping in, push the end back to close the jumping. You can leave it as it is. This wire is thick enough to keep the shape, but if you want to fill the gap with soda, this is what you will do. Hold a little jumping with the tips of a pair of soldering tweezers. Put a small piece of As soda on. Have the fire focused on the clasp, but keep the flame away from the jumping that is attached to it. Once the EC solder melts, remove the fire. In this way the class will be soldered onto the chain permanently. Because the end of the clasp is cut off with the metal shear, the edge is quite sharp. To make the end of the clasp smoother, we're going to run it up with a 1.8 mm Ber cup. It will not scratch our skin. I run it with a pandemor, put the entire chain back to the pickle bath to remove the fire stain. In this class, we have made the class from scratch and put it onto our bracelet. In the next one, we're going to give it a finishing touch. 13. Oxidising & Polishing The Bracelet: In this class, we are going to give it an antique finish, but if you prefer having your bracelet in white silver, you can skip the first half of this class. Please jump to the second half and put the chain directly into the rotary tumbler. If you want to give your bracelet an antique finish, this is what we will do because the silver blackener I am using is a hazardous material. I'm going to wear a pair of rubber gloves to avoid direct contact with my skin. The glass teapot I use is only ever used for handling silver blackener. Never mix it with a teapot for drinking, Drop the bracelet inside of the teapot, pull enough silver blackener to fully merge the bracelet. Give it a gentle shake to make sure there is no air bubbles trapped between the lens. Leave it there for 5 minutes. Recycle the rest of the chemical back to the Boto for next time. Seal the tight. This is how the chain looks now. This is how it looks. After it is rinsed with water, make sure to follow the instruction on the bottle from the manufacturer when disposing of the water with diluted silver blackener. If you like the solid black color, you can skip the following and wipe some Brothers sons wax to protect the surface. And then keep it as it is. To give it a distressed look, we need to partially take off some of the oxidized layer on the surface. I use the hock from a picture hanging, set open the end of this hock a little bit using a pair of general purpose pliers. I need to secure this hook onto the side of my table so that I can put the end of the bracelet onto the hook. You can use the string to tie the bracelet and onto a table lack or anything heavy. If not even asking someone to hold it for you will work as well. To remove some of the top surface, we slide a small piece of sand paper along the bracelet. When the sandpaper scratches the chain, a very thin layer of the oxidized surface will be removed. The bright silver underneath will be revealed. This is how our bracelet looks. To polish the bracelet, we put it inside of the barrel tumbling machine, run the machine for an hour, rinse the bracelet thoroughly with tap water, paddy dry with a paper towel. This is our finished foxtail bracelet. In this class, you have learned how to give you a silver bracelet. A final touch coming up. Final thought. 14. Final Thoughts: Now you know how to make your own foxtail bracelet. You have learned how to make jump prints, how to bench solder them in an efficient way. How to weave the foxtail links one by one. How to make the links uniform. How to make the chain move freely. How to make the ends for your bracelet. How to make a clasp from wire. And finally, how to give your bracelet an antique finish. I would love to see your process picture and your Foxtail bracelet posting in the project section. You can find me on my website and on my Youtube channel talking about anything jury related. I will see you in the next video.