One of my favorite instructors is Gloria Uhler of Domestic-DivaOnline. She is a crafting enthusiast and her easy tutorials often contain good tips.  

Her wirework dragonfly pendant tutorial is one of those. I like the use of a single oval crystal for the body for a pop of color.

But it is the twisted wire tail which caught my attention. Can you guess what tool she used to coil the tail?

Gloria just bought twisted wire for her project. But you can easily twist wire yourself. The quickest way is to use a household drill. You can use 2 or more wires, in different gauges and different metals will give you fun results. Twisted wire can be used in all kinds of wire jewelry projects. 

Shown below is metalsmith, Nancy Hamilton's tutorial on how to twist wire. She uses short lengths of wire for her demonstration.  


This is the exact technique I use for speedy twisting and coiling wire (I also use other manual techniques - see first link below).  It is important to have a variable speed drill so that you can twist (or coil) slowly for more control.  The one difference is the type of drill. I don't like drills where you have to lay them down as you can see what Nancy does in her video. 

I prefer drills which stand up on its own like the cordless  Black and Decker here :



You can make very long length of twisted wire if you double up the wire lengths and place the loop end to a door knob or something convenient. The ends should be wrapped with masking tape and then inserted into the drill chuck as Nancy demonstrates.  

When I run my beginner wire twisting and coiling classes (pre- pandemic) locally, students get all excited when they get to use the drill.  I suspect some of them were actually holding an electric drill for the first time too! They sure appreciate the time saver after I make them first learn how to coil and twist using manual methods.

Before You Go:

Disclosure 
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Original Post by THE BEADING GEM