Jewelry Making

Because several readers have asked about this, we are actually going to make an effort to review specific jewelry supply products here on Bloglander Jewelry Making. To kick this off, Peter from The Contenti Company was nice enough to send us a few jewelry making related items for consideration. We’ll be attempting to review products from other companies as well. (If you manufacture or sell jewelry making products and you’re interested in this, please let us know!)

First up are these great compact Chain Nose Parallel Pliers which are made by Valor exclusively for Contenti. These particular pliers are around 5 inches in length which are about the same length as the ordinary chain nose pliers that we use for making jewelry.

The pliers come in either flat nose style or chain nose style and with smooth or serrated jaws. The one we got was the smooth chain nose variety. I believe there is also a longer model that features springs between the handles for easy return.

The overall construction is pretty solid, unlike a lot of the pliers that we have gotten at larger craft stores and swap meets. The heft and fit, at least for my hand, was perfect. It actually reminded me a bit of my swiss army type Leatherman tool. It was a bit heavier than most of the cheaper plastic chain nose pliers that we have lying around. The handles are nickel plated and have an indentation pattern for easier gripping. For folks who aren’t used to rubber coated or plastic handles, this may take some getting used to. (Though, I assume it’d be easy enough to “dip” them in the usual rubber solutions.

One of the only issues that I have with this plier are that the tips of the pliers don’t taper down small enough at the end for certain smaller items. This makes it a bit difficult to grasp extremely small findings and wire. However, I don’t believe this tool should be looked upon as a “works for everything” plier anyhow. For me, it has turned out to be more of a specialty plier for larger items when I need better grip on things.

So, I haven’t yet gotten to the most important feature of this plier yet. They are indeed just like the Chain Nose pliers that you have, but they actually feature a special internal mechanism that keeps the jaws parallel when you close them down. You can see what I’m talking about by looking in this picture of my normal chain nose pliers and the Valor Parallel ones.

A normal chain nose plier has jaws hat are angled throughout their range of movement… indeed they are only parallel when they meet. The jaws of the chain nose parallel pliers remain parallel throughout their FULL gripping range. This makes the gripping more secure because the pressure is more equally distributed. I also found it particularly nice for gripping round or cylindrical glass and metal beads. In my old chain nose pliers, round beads had tendency to “squirt away” when gripped in the jaws.

Overall, I’d consider these Parallel Chain Nose Pliers a nice addition to the average jewelry maker’s tool collection. At a price of under $15, it’s a pretty decent buy as well. I think it’d be especially helpful for those who work with larger beads or more serious metal workers.

Valor Chain Nose Parallel Pliers
Available exclusively at: The Contenti Company