The first step is to snip off a piece of sterling wire at least 6 inches long. I use either 20 gauge or 22 gauge. After you make a few of these, you will have a better idea of how much wire you will need to make bails of different lengths.
I've always liked the tube bails that I see used on some pendants, and I've made some in the past. One night while making one of these, I realized that I could make tube bails that had an interesting texture in about 1/3 of the time if I just made coiled wire springs and soldered them into a single piece. I tried it, and sure enough, it worked just like I had anticipated. Here is how you do it:
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| The first step is to snip off a piece of sterling wire at least 6 inches long. I use either 20 gauge or 22 gauge. After you make a few of these, you will have a better idea of how much wire you will need to make bails of different lengths. |
The next thing you'll want to do is decide how large you want the diameter of the hole to be in your spring bail. Once you have an idea in your mind, you need to find an object or tool that has a rod of that diameter. Sometimes I use thick silver wire for this, brass rod, or the handle of a needle file. In this case, I used the business end of a phillips screwdriver. |
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 | Place the end of the wire alongside the rod, screwdriver, or whatever you are using as a jig. |
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Carefully and slowly wrap the wire around the jig, while doing your best to keep the individual wraps touching each other. |  |
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Wrap the entire wire around your jig. |
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Slide the spring you have created off of your jig. Using your fingers, carefully bend it into the shape you need for your bail. I do this by gently pushing straight down while holding the ends with my other hand. Try to keep the coils of the spring touching each other. |  |
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Place your formed spring onto your soldering surface. Heat it and flux it really well. |
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Make sure to flip it over and thoroughly flux the underside. |  |
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Here I selected three large snippets of hard silver sheet solder. Make sure you use quite a bit, because you want to fill in all the spots where wire touches wire. Hard silver solder, having a higher content of silver, polishes much better than medium or easy. |
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Move the fluxed spring so it is sitting on top of the snippets of hard solder. |  |
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Begin heating your piece. |
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Keep the torch moving constantly over the entire piece. Watch the solder snippets. When you see them flow into the spring, remove the heat quickly. Too much heat, and you will melt your bail. |  |
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This is what your bail will look like immediately after soldering. |
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Using your side cutters, trim off excess wire on both sides. |  |
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File each side flat using a single cut bastard file. |
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At this point, your bail is ready to incorporate into your overall design. I have included an example of how I used this type of bail on a pendant. |  |
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