Note: I had a heck of a time trying to take pics for this as I’m no photographer, so excuse any blurriness or off colors. It’s even harder when trying hold a digital camera, wire and tools steady at the same time!
I normally use half hard 24 gauge wire to make loops, but you may want to try dead soft to start with since it’s easier to work with. The one thing with using most round nosed pliers with dead soft silver wire is that it tends to mark the wire. You can dip the tips of round nosed pliers in a rubber mixture that they sell at art stores to prevent marking up the wire.
Anyhow, cut off some wire to practice with. About a foot or less is good… any longer and you will have problems with the long wire end flipping up into your face. Now, the first thing to do is grasp the very end of the wire as in Fig 2a with the Round Nose Pliers. You want to grab it around 1/2 inch up the tip of the pliers. The exact location will depend on how big you want the loop to be. You’ll get the hang of where to place it on your particular pliers after awhile. Some people also put little markings along the round nose pliers tips to designate where to grab.
Now, holding the pliers firmly but not excessively hard with one hand, use your other to bend the wire in a loop around the plier tip. Don’t worry if it’s not a perfectly complete circle yet, in fact that will be impossible because the other end of the pliers will be blocking you from completing it. When I first started, my mistake was to try and force the wire to bend completely in a circle at this point, which is definitely not the way to go.
Instead, what you want to do is SWITCH the loop from the top plier tine to the bottom plier tine. I apologize as this is not that easy to show with photos. Basically, remove the loop from the top part of the plier and just slide it back on the bottom part, around the same position along the length of the plier tip. This will allow you now to continue bending the wire around the plier to complete your loop. If there’s anything I wish I knew when I first started making loops, I think this is it right here. You will need to switch the loop occasionally from top to bottom part of the plier in order to turn good loops.
