Stainless steel wire.. ouch

I couple of days ago, a jewelry friend in a group I am in on facebook asked about wire cages. I decided to whip one up to show her how to do one in the crisscross style.

bottom view

 I should have picked copper or something, but the first thing I grabbed was the stainless steel wire in 24g. I have been thinking lately about unisex jewelry, and I really love the industrial and steampunk styles.. so that probably influenced my wire choice as well. I wrapped the center of the wire so that the stone would have something to sit on, and then I shaped that section to the cab.

I then pulled over the back two wires, to create something for the stone to sit on while I was shaping the crossing wires.

First crossing wires

 The crossing wires started with the front two, which are the bottom cross. I normally would secure them to the side frame at this point, but this wasn't working with the stainless, so I pushed the cross down a little further and tried to figure out where would look best on the pattern before I continued with the crossing.

second crossing wires

 The 'side' wires became the second crossed area. I then pulled out the back wires to the shape of the cab, and pinched in the top where I figured the bail was going to be. At this point I wasn't quite sure how I was going to make the cab stay in the frame because the back bits weren't holding it the way I figured they should. If I had done this in copper, I would have just squished them tight against the stone.

The back, first shot

 So I pulled the bottom crossing wires to the back, and did a swirly thing to secure them. Lots of excess wire sticking out yet! With the end of the swirly, I coiled a little bit around the two bail wires.

It was time to deal with the second set of wires. Oi.

over under crisscross

 I tightened the second wires, and tried to get them to sit where I wanted. Not an easy task with stainless!

The bail is also crooked still. Tweak.. tweak.. tweak..

front, after crystal

 I curled and twisted around the back wires a bit to get the two top crisscross wires to stay in place, and then I added a crystal and made a rose kinda thing around it. A rose is also harder in stainless.

While I was making the rose, the cab kept popping out, so I decided to pull in the sides on the back. I am glad to say it worked :)

the back, with the wibbles

While I was making the rose on the front, I also went around the back again a few times to make sure it wasn't going to wobble around.

 

almost finished

 I used my new looping pliers to make the bail.. widest one of this type I have made to date! I went around the back of the bail stem after the second time around the pliers, which seems to have helped with stability. There was some leftover wire, so I went around and around the bail until I decided it would look funny if I added any more, and I *gasp* trimmed and tucked. I know.. I know.. so out of style for me LOL

I think another reason I chose the stainless steel wire is because I just ordered this ball chain, with the idea of unisex jewelry.

All finished, with stainless steel ball chain.

Thanks for reading!

Becca