Xuron comes to dinner (B&B Show recap #4ish)

I first became acquainted with Xuron through Ashley Bunting (you may have heard of her as Miss Ashley Kate) who I met when The Beadin' Path came to a Loose Bead Society program in 2011.  A year later she was with Xuron and offered me a sample of their "Fireline scissors", and I fell in love.  With the scissors, not with Ashley.  Not that she isn't cute and all, but I'm married.  You know how that goes.  Anyway, you can read the whole story and my review of the Fireline scissors here.

From there it has snowballed... I have reviewed a number of Xuron tools (there's a list of the reviews on my website), I started selling some of them on my website, and, most importantly, I have become good friends with Abby, my main contact at Xuron.  In our house, we call her Xuron Abby.  My husband, Steve, has dealings with Xuron sometimes at work at Model Railroader or Model Retailer magazines, so we talk about Xuron Abby regularly.  It's usually something like, "What's Xuron Abby's e-mail address?  We got a pair of 90 degree bent nose pliers as a sample and I have a few questions."  (Due to that conversation I ended up with my own sample of the pliers!  Stay tuned for a review!)

Frequent readers of my blog may remember that Xuron Abby and Ashley took me out to dinner the last night of the 2014 Bead&Button Show (photographic evidence near the end of this post).

I vowed to return the favor this year, and Abby requested a dish I've posted about before, Kraft's Chicken in Creamy Pan Sauce.  So for a year Steve and I prepared to have them over for dinner.  It took gobs of preparation, you know.  However, Abby was unable to attend the show this year.  After wiping my tears, I decided to go ahead with the dinner anyway, because Ashley was still coming, and I wanted to spend some time with her.  Angelica, who lives in Milwaukee, helped out, so she was invited, too.  I actually spent some time trying to figure out how we could send leftovers home with Ashley so Abby could eat, too, but I decided that wasn't feasible.  She'll just have to make it herself or wait until next year.  :)

It would have been nice if Ashley had remembered to invite Angelica before I showed up at the Marketplace.  Ashley was busy talking to someone, and I walked up to Angelica and asked, "Are you allergic to cats?"  To her credit, she didn't freak out and just said she wasn't allergic.  I believe I then asked about any food allergies.  She looked utterly confused, so I introduced myself and said she was coming to dinner on Sunday night.  Ashley looked over and said, "Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about that."  Angelica didn't run away screaming, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

Ashley and Angelica at the Bead&Button Show

Finally Sunday night came, and they came over.  Here's the yummy dinner Steve made:

Doesn't that look good?  Wish you had clicked on the recipe link above?  Here - because I'm nice to you, here it is again: Chicken in Creamy Pan Sauce.

Before we ate we thought we should take a few pictures, so there was some fumbling with trying to set up Ashley's phone for a timed picture, but there was no good place for it (and dinner was cooling).  The cats were also unhelpful (as per usual), so we took pictures in shifts:

and

The pictures are a little yellow, but yes, we do have peach walls.

Then we had an "I'm-sorry-off" because I forgot to tell Angelica that there were noodles, and she can't eat many noodles.  It was fine, though, because she picked the ones with the most sauce on them and ate the chicken, tomatoes, and basil.  Dinner was declared delicious by all.  (Thanks, Steve!)  We decided that the next time Angelica comes over we'll have kebabs.

I offered to take Ashley back to her hotel so Angelica could get home to her waiting dog.  Ashley stayed quite some time, and I asked her about her book, Fiber & Cord Jewelry: Easy to Make Projects Using Paracord, Hemp, Leather, and More.  I've been considering submitting a book to Kalmbach (the publishing company for Bead&Button, Bead Style, and Art Jewelry as well as the magazines Steve works for) and was curious about the book-writing process.  It's a lot of work, but it sounds fun and rewarding!

Eventually I had to take Ashley back.  I was glad I could spend so much time with her and that I got to meet Angelica.  It's always nice to have a new friend in the area!

Now we have to determine what to have for dinner next year when Xuron Abby WILL be in attendance (all caps, bold, italics, and underlined makes it a certainty, doesn't it?).  We can't serve the same thing two years in a row, can we?  Any ideas?  Leave them in the comments!

Free instructions! Two-strand bracelet with Xuron 4 in 1 Crimper

Want to learn how to make this bracelet

using the Xuron 4 in 1 Crimper and CzechMates two-holed bricks?  Read on for a free PDF with all of the instructions!
 
This is a project I taught at the Make -n- Take event at the Art Glass and Bead Show in Madison, Wisconsin on March 27, 2015.  It's a fun show, and the Make -n- Take event is a blast!  It's a flurry of activity - six groups of up to 10 people rotating around the room, making a bunch of different projects.

Everyone loved this bracelet and the Xuron 4 in 1 Crimper.  Here's the crimper in action:

If you haven't read my review of the 4 in 1 Crimper yet, click here for all the details.

I talked with Abby from Xuron about the project a number of times, and we decided to make the instructions available to everyone.

The instructions include a full tutorial about how to use the tool as well as how to make the bracelet.  Here are a few of the other colors we made during the Make -n- Take:

The beads used are 4mm fire polish or bicones, 6mm fire polish or bicones, and CzechMates two-holed bricks.  You could use a toggle clasp with two loops, but it works just fine with a regular toggle clasp.

So, without further ado, here is the link to the instructions:  Two-strand bracelet PDF

If you're interested in purchasing the Xuron 4 in 1 Crimper or any of the other Xuron tools I carry, please visit my tools shop page.

I only have a few colors left of the kits:

They are available for purchase in my shop here.

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For next year's Make -n- Take event, I'm planning on showcasing the Xuron Split Ring Pliers for a fun pendant using guitar picks.  Stay tuned!

Tool Review - Xuron bent nose tweezers

I mentioned in my Bead&Button Show Aftermath post a few weeks ago that I came home with a new Xuron tool - the 450BN bent nose tweezers.  As with the other tools Xuron has been kind enough to give me samples of, I'm posting a review so you can see how neat they are.

Here's a full-length shot of them:

The most important part of tweezers is how well they "tweeze" - how tightly they close.  I've had some really crappy tweezers that wouldn't hold pony bead, so I was excited to see the Xuron tweezers closed:

Yup.  There's no daylight showing at the tips.  That's a good sign.  Each tip is under 1mm wide from this angle.  Maybe a half a millimeter.  It's hard to tell with the rulers I have.

Let's take a look at them from the side:

The jaws are a little more than 1mm wide from this view.

I really like the bent nose on these tweezers.  A few years ago I bought two new pairs of pliers - a chain nose and a bent nose.  For some reason I find it so much easier to work with the bent nose pliers, and I reach for them 95% of the time.  Perhaps it's because I can see things better while I work and seem to have more control.  The other 5% I use the chain nose pliers to justify my having bought them.  :)

Since I brought these tweezers home, I've been using them in place of the bent nose pliers to see if they'd measure up.  I've primarily been using them to open and close loops of earring wires.  I've been a little nervous on the ones with harder wires, but it's been just fine.  The black earring wires I used with the Loosey-Goosey stick spiral fringe earrings and the Faux-Mobius loop spiral earrings are more malleable, so the tweezers worked perfectly, especially when I closed one of the loops too much.  I inserted the tweezer tip into the loop and pulled it back out a little.

The best thing tweezers are for is placing tiny and/or hard-to-control objects like flat-back crystals.  I showed you them in use in yesterday's purple riveted bracelet.  Here's another look at the tweezers in action:

Since then I've played around with the tweezers and some much smaller crystals.

I got a really good grip on the crystal and took pictures of it from a number of different angles:

That sucker didn't slip once, even though I was fumbling with my camera taking pictures one-handed and rotating the tweezers.  I'm really confident that they'd be good for placing crystals in crystal clay projects.  Yes, you'd still have to be careful to not nick the clay with the tips, but that's the case with any tweezer.

As tweezers go, these are top notch.  True, tweezers aren't the most exciting tool in the world, but if you have a crappy pair, they can be very frustrating.  If you do a lot of crystal clay work or need to place tiny, tiny things in precise places, give the Xuron bent nose tweezers a try.  You can find them online, or you can e-mail me at traci@creative-pursuits.biz, and I'll see if I can hook you up.

Battle of the Split Ring Pliers

Two weeks ago I reviewed my "Bead Buddy" split ring pliers.  If you missed that, you can catch up here.  Since I posted that, I've heard from a few people that they didn't even know this kind of pliers existed, and I think blood has been drawn in the effort to use a sharp pokey thing to assist in separating the rings.

Abby from Xuron is a regular reader of my blog (hi, Abby!), and this week I received a sample of Xuron's split ring pliers (thanks, Abby!).  I e-mailed her to thank her, and I told her I'd have a "Battle of the Split Ring Pliers" and said, "It's on like Donkey Kong!"  I don't know where that came from, but I tickled myself.

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ARE YOU RREEAADDYY TO SPLIT SOME RRRRRRRRINGS?!?

In this corner... Weighing in at 63.3g... The current champion sporting green handles... The Bead Buddy split ring pliers!  ::crowd roars::

And in THIS corner... Weighing in at 60.8g... The challenger sporting baby blue handles... The Xuron split ring pliers!  ::crowd roars even louder::

::ding ding ding::

As they come together in the middle of the ring, we see the Bead Buddy pliers have a wider stance, making them a little harder to hold for people with smaller hands (including the referee):

Squeezing each of them closed, the referee finds that the Bead Buddy pliers are nowhere near as smooth as the Xuron pliers!  ::crowd makes shocked sounds::

Look out!  Bead Buddy threw a right hook at a passing split ring!  Let's look that in slow motion:

Wow - that looked like a glancing blow, and the separation of the rings is minimal.

Not to be outdone, Xuron - who closely resembles Sam the Eagle of The Muppets - wrenches the ring away from Bead Buddy and takes his own shot at it:

Xuron's approach is a little different - it's more diagonal than horizontal - but he gets right in there and separates the rings much more than Bead Buddy.

What's that?  Xuron knocked Bead Buddy AND a pair of circuit board/resistor earrings out in one fell swoop!

The crowd is going absolutely wild!  We have a winner, folks!  We. Have. A. Winner!  ::holds the Xuron split ring pliers high in the air while dancing around the studio:::

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I hope you enjoyed that battle as much as I did.  I know you may be thinking that I let the Xuron pliers "win" because they were given to me by Xuron, but they really are a much higher quality of plier than the Bead Buddy ones.  Yeah, you'll pay more for Xuron, but that money goes straight into quality.

It took a little while for me to get used to how the Xuron pliers work (the whole diagonal vs. horizontal thing), but once I did, I really liked it.  Since the ring separation is so much wider, it was easier to move components through, and I didn't have to switch to my bent nose pliers for the last part of it.  I was able to rest the end of the ring against the pliers and push the ring the rest of the way.  The feel of the Xuron pliers is so much nicer, too.  All around it's a wonderful tool.

I do maintain that if you're very rarely going to use split rings, you'd be fine with a Bead-Buddy-caliber plier, but for anyone who will use split rings more than once or twice a year, you would do well to invest in the Xuron pliers.

This is not going to be the case with every tool I review, but I sell these split ring pliers along with the 4 in 1 Crimper and the Fireline scissors.  You can find them at any bead show I go to (see my website for my calendar) or on my Xuron tool shop page for $16 plus $3 shipping.  You can probably find them cheaper elsewhere, but you'll have my undying gratitude, and if there are any problems with the tool, I have a direct line to Xuron.

Now onto the earrings themselves.  The circuit board is from the keyboard I took apart.  There's a picture of the best parts from that keyboard along with a bracelet I made from the silicone sheet here.  I'm in the middle of another bracelet using the silicone sheet - look for that next week!

The resistors Steve bought go well with the circuit board, so I used those as well.  I have 470 resistors left.  Long, long way to go!

If you missed my reviews of other Xuron products, check them out:  "Fireline" scissors and 4 in 1 Crimper.

Tool Review: Xuron 4 in 1 Crimper

Welcome to my first Review Friday!  As I mentioned earlier in the week, I'm planning on reviewing tools, books, beads, yarns, and whatever else strikes my fancy.  I've written it in my calendar for the rest of the year, so tune in every Friday for a new review!  Right now Frisco (our new kitten) is playing on my desk, chewing on everything including my beads, papers, and Pixel's tail.  If he doesn't simmer down, I'll review him!  Katy (our 20 year old cat) is on the desk now, too, and her review of Frisco is unfavorable based on the growls she's giving him.

 

A hiss was not far behind

(yes, the screen shows me writing this very blog post!)

Remember, if you ever want to look back over my reviews, scroll down until you see the "labels" section on the right side of the blog.  Look for "review" for all of them or "review - " for a specific type of review ("review - tool", "review - book", etc).

Now on to the tool.  I first saw the Xuron 4 in 1 Crimper at the Xuron Bead&Button Show booth.  Abby and Ashley were there giving demonstrations.  Since I gave a glowing review of the Xuron "Fireline" scissors, and sell them, Abby gave me a sample of the new crimper!  Her stipulation was that I get my husband a new calculator.  (She had such a laugh at the B&B Show Meet the Teachers reception seeing Steve try to navigate my very tiny Fire Mountain Gems calculator!)  I was so excited with the demonstration and the sample that I said, "Glowing review coming right up!"

When I first started making jewelry (was it really over 20 years ago?), my mother and stepfather gave me a pair of Craftsman 4518 needle nose pliers.  I did everything with them: bend, cut, and squeeze crimp beads.  There were many times where I wasn't happy with the crimp and had to do it over and over again because it just wouldn't hold.  I even had to restring pieces because I had to cut the wire to try crimping again.  I got nervous that my necklaces and bracelets wouldn't hold.

Years later I bought actual crimping pliers - the Mighty Crimper and the Micro Crimper.  In looking those up I found there's also a Bead Crimper tool that I think is made by the same company.

The difference with crimping pliers and squeezing the crap out of the crimp bead with needle nose pliers is that crimping pliers (with the right kind of crimping bead) will put a dent in the middle of the bead in one part of the pliers then you turn it to fold the two halves together.

I had slightly better success with those tools, but I frequently had problems getting the dent deep enough so the two halves would fold together nicely.  I don't know if I was using the wrong tool for the size crimp beads I had or if the dent just wasn't deep enough.  Here's a close-up picture of the Mighty Crimpers squeezed shut:

The first hole is where the bead gets folded over, and the lips-looking one is the part that makes the dent.  See the huge gap there?  I think that was my problem.

Again - I could have been using the wrong size crimp beads.  Remember I mentioned three different pliers by the same company?  The Micro Crimpers are for 1mm beads and smaller.  The Mighty Crimpers are for 3mm beads and larger.  I guess the Bead Crimper tool is for 2mm beads.  So you need three tools to cover all the different sizes of crimp beads.  I guess you can just buy one tool and one size crimp bead, but that's limiting.  Somewhere along the way I've misplaced the Micro Crimpers, so I've been limping along with the Mighty Crimpers... Until now.

Here is the Xuron 4 in 1 Crimper in all its glory:

I love the color.  The bright green will stand out on my messy desk (as long as it's not completely covered in papers).  It's actually brighter in person and very pretty.

Let's look at the business end close up:

 

Open

 

Closed

The back of the package has a detailed diagram of each of the parts of the pliers.  From left to right there's the 1mm folding station, the 2mm folding station, the 3mm folding station, and the crimping station.  I think it's so cute that they call them "stations".  There's also a step by step guide for how to use the pliers.  And... Bonus!  The tip is a chain nose plier.  You can use the crimping pliers to help you bend the wire into place instead of grabbing another pair of pliers.

Did you notice the difference in the crimping station?  It's a tight V instead of a loose U.  This makes a world of difference.  Also, the 3mm folding station is a lot smaller than the one on the Mighty Crimper.  I know it's for crimp beads 3mm or bigger, but I think the hole was too big to properly work on 3mm beads.

Let's see the Xuron Crimper in action.  I have quite a mix of crimping beads I bought from who-knows-where.  The only ones I'm sure are actual crimp beads are long, so each part of the process needs to happen twice: making the dent twice and folding twice, once at each end of the bead.

Here's the initial crimping (making the dent):

In action (hard to do one handed while taking a picture with the other hand!)

Final result after crimping twice

I find it's easier to have the V with the opening at the bottom.  Gravity keeps the crimp bead in place while the top part comes down to crimp.

In case you're wondering, I decided to take pictures while making a necklace instead of wasting a crimp bead.  I put the loop of the clasp through the wire's loop instead of using jump rings which can pull apart during wear.  I don't want to risk the wire slipping out of the jump ring's slit and having the piece fall off.

I then turned the crimp bead to the side so the dent is horizontal (like this: < ), and squeezed it in the 2mm folding station:

After squeezing both ends, here's the final result:

That sucker isn't going anywhere!

The one thing I wish the 4 in 1 Crimper had is a "cutting station".  Once I have the wire crimped, if the end is too long, I need to reach for my cutters to trim.  It's not a huge deal, of course, but it would be nice.  Doesn't hurt to dream!  :)

For anyone who strings jewelry at all, this is the tool to use for all your crimping needs.  I have used it numerous times - it's easy to use, and I have had no problems with any crimp beads sliding out.  I love the bright green color, and since Xuron makes it, I know the quality is high.

This is not going to be the case with every tool I review, but I sell this 4 in 1 Crimper along with the Fireline scissors and split ring pliers.  You can find them at any bead show I go to (see my website for my calendar) or on my Xuron tool shop page for $22 plus $3.50 shipping.  You can find them cheaper elsewhere, but you'll have my undying gratitude, and if there are any problems with the tool, I have a direct line to Xuron.

Happy crimping (for once)!

Tool Review: Xuron "Fireline scissors"

 

Background 

 

The day after the Bead&Button Show in 2011, The Beadin' Path gave a presentation to the Loose Bead Society (you can see photos from that presentation here).  We met Heather DeSimone, Elisa Sullivan, and Ashley Bunting.  Nice ladies, and they brought a bunch of wonderful things.  I'm friends with them on Facebook so I could tag them in the LBS pics, and it's nice to see what they're up to.

Fast forward to the Bead&Button Show this year.  I saw Ashley there - I think it was at the Meet the Teachers event - and she told me she was with Xuron now.  (Did she post that on Facebook?  I need to read more closely!)

I was surprised to get an e-mail from Ashley shortly after the Show.  She said she saw my item in Bead&Button in the Twin bead challenge (check it out here) and noticed that I used Fireline for my beading thread.  She told me about the Xuron 9180 High Durability Scissors, also called Fireline scissors, and a little about the company.  She offered to send a sample of the scissors for me to try out.  Here's a video of her using the scissors.  They are engineered to never dull, so instantly I was interested.

I told Steve about it, and as soon as I mentioned Xuron he said, "Xuron?  Yeah, they make good tools.  I have rail nippers that cut clean every time."  With that endorsement and Ashley's offer, how could I refuse?

I love using Fireline.  It doesn't fall out of my needle (I've had that problem with K.O. and Nymo), it doesn't need waxing, and my pieces feel secure.  However, Fireline does quickly dull scissors.  You start like this:

Then to save your blades, you switch to this:

That gives a fairly sharp cut, but it's not very precise.

I know a number of people who buy dollar store scissors to use just with Fireline.  When they get dull, they're tossed.  I've been using my scrapbook scissors.  I know I shouldn't, but they're handy.

The unveiling

 

In short order, my new Fireline scissors arrived:

Not actual size  :)

Yup - they're more like pliers than scissors.  They're a bit larger than I'm used to, but it's not bad.  One edge is serrated and one is smooth:

Larger than actual size

The scissors have a Micro-Shear (R) by-pass cutting method which, according to Xuron, "reduces effort and extends tool life as the cutting blades do not meet edge to edge."

Much larger than actual size

Here's an "action" shot:

The actual "review" 

 

So how well do they cut?  I used one of my scrapbook scissors and cut in the "normal" way (not all the way down), and those cuts are on the left in the below picture.  The Fireline scissors cuts are on the right:

The cuts are clean and crisp every time.  There are no little fibers that will stick up from your piece that are near-to-impossible to hack off (I've had that problem more often than I'd like to admit).  Flatten the edge a little in between the teeth or fingernails, and zip! it slides right into the eye of a needle.

The one thing I will say is that the blades are pretty thick, so it may be a little difficult to get super close in to the beadwork.  However, I've used them on a few projects so far and haven't noticed a problem.  They are sharp all the way to the tips, so you should be able to get pretty close.

Where to find them

Now that you're all excited, I bet you want to know where you can find them.  If you do a Google search, you'll find a number of references to "Kevlar fiber shear" or other names.  They're the same scissors - they cut Kevlar as well as Fireline and other high strength beading threads.  I even saw a few references to tennis racket restringing.  As long as you see "Xuron 9180", they're the right scissors.

This is not going to be the case with every tool I review, but I sell the Fireline scissors along with the 4 in 1 Crimper and split ring pliers.  You can find them at any bead show I go to (see my website for my calendar) or on my Xuron tool shop page for $25 plus $3 shipping.  You can find them cheaper elsewhere, but you'll have my undying gratitude, and if there are any problems with the tool, I have a direct line to Xuron.

The bottom line 

 

So, if I hadn't gotten these free from Xuron (thanks, Ashley!), would I pay $20-25 for a pair of scissors?  Yes, I would.

I like to get tools that solve a problem that has irritated me for quite some time.  The screen protector on my cell phone constantly had air bubbles and looked horrible.  It bothered me every time I used my phone, which is practically all the time, so I was constantly irritated.  I found a place that had a highly durable screen protector that cost more than a normal one, but there would be no air bubbles and no dust underneath that causes a little bubble.  Yes, it cost a bit more, but now I don't have to think about it again.  In my studio I've mentioned the magnetic tool rack I recently got for my pliers.  That was only $4 (woohoo!), but that solved the problem of keeping my pliers in order and out of the jumble that ended up on my desk.

If you work with Fireline, you know how quickly it can dull scissors.  You've likely had frayed ends that were difficult to thread into a needle and that stuck out from your work.  It's a problem that you face each time you bead.  If you'd like to focus more on the beading and less on the cutting, give these scissors a try.

Now that I've earned my sample, I think it's time to get back to beading!