Crimping Pliers Product Review

Crimping pliers are a special type of pliers. Their sole purpose is to close crimp beads, which are metal beads that are crushed to hold beading wire or other stringing material. There are crimping pliers for standard size crimp beads and pliers for tiny crimps. Is such a specialized tool worth the money? The answer to this question depends on how often you use crimp beads and also on how skilled you are using the alternative tool, flatnose pliers, to crush crimp beads.

Here are the advantages of crimping pliers:

• They give consistent results. It's much harder to crimp perfectly every time with flatnose pliers.
• The crimp is very secure.
• The resulting crimp is very tiny. This is important if you like to hide your crimp beads inside larger beads.
• The working area of the plier jaws is narrow, so you can fit the pliers into spots that might be a tight squeeze for other tools.

Here'a photo of my pliers:

The jaws of the pliers have two sets of indentations for crimping each bead twice. The first crimp, using the 'v'-shaped notch closer to the handle of the pliers, separates the two sides of the stringing material. A flatnose pliers makes a smooth, flat compression; the crimping pliers leave an indentation on one side of the crimp with a smooth back side. The next crimp is made using the indentation closer to the tip of the pliers. The crimp is bent around the previous indentation, which makes for a very tiny finished bead and a very tight grip on the wire. Personally, I think crimps I make with these pliers are stronger and more professional-looking than crimps made using flatnose pliers. Bottom line: If your crimps made with flatnose pliers sometimes slip, then these pliers will be worth their weight in gold to you. On the other hand, if you are very pleased with your flatnose pliers results you probably won't see much benefit from these pliers.

Here's a tutorial on how to close a crimp bead. One of the projects you can make with crimp beads and beading wire is a long rope necklace. Please feel free to e-mail me if you have comments about these pliers or questions about my experience with it.

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