First, insert the drop into the headpin all the way up to the top. One important note is that sometimes the drillhole for the stone will actually be too large and the top of the headpin won’t be enough to block the stone from falling off.
I’ve actually had that happen a couple of times. In that case, if you can’t get to the store and buy headpins that have a larger top (and sometimes there AREN’T any that are large enough), you can always make your own headpins as I discussed in an earlier article.
Ok, assuming that your headpin is fine, take your round nose (rosary) pliers and grasp the headpin as close to the stone as you can. You can also do this with the chain nose pliers as well, but I like to do it with the round nose because we’re going to use this in the next couple of steps.
Note that the location along the tip of the pliers at which you grab the headpin is important… you don’t want to grab it at the very tip otherwise you won’t create enough space for the wirewrap along the headpin. I like to grasp it about 1/4 to 1/2 inch up the tip.
Next, still grasping the wire with the round nose pliers, you want to bend the wire downward away from you at a 90 degree angle.
Some people bend it more than 90 degrees down but I find that anything more than 90 degrees will cause problems later in the looping process. It will tend to make the loop more off-centered and cause you to have to adjust it later with the round nose pliers.
Now you want to readjust the pliers so that you are grabbing the headpin as in Figure 2d. This position is sort of important as you need to have part of the plier on top in order to form the loop.
Also, remember that where you grab the wire with the pliers affects how large the loop you are going to form will be. You’ll see what I mean in the next set of photos.
