[Jewelry making - Article 00160] - [Orchid] Beaded Necklaces Keep Breaking

[Annabel]

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Hello,

    I hope that one of you kind Orchidians will help me with a problems
    has been plaguing for so long that I have stopped making this
    product. 

    I have been using beadalon and crimp beads to string large stones.
    Usually they are round and heavy -- often they are 8mm or bigger. 

    Unfortunately, the necklaces often wind up breaking. They would
    usually break around the area where I had made the crimp. I either
    crimped with beading pliers or crimping pliers. Also, no matter how
    tightly I would string the necklace, there would still be a little gap
    of beadalon showing once I was done. To make the ends of the necklace
    look nice, I would try cover the part of the beadalon exposed over
    the class with those hollow tube thingamajigs -- they might be called
    cord coils, I am not sure -- that are either silver or gold colored
    wire and that you slip over the portion of the beadalon that forms
    the loop at the end of the crimp bead. I do not know if this item was
    affecting the breakage or not. 

    I refuse to sell these necklaces until I fix this problem. 

    Does anyone know what I am doing wrong? I have done everything,
    including taking a class on this topic and reading a ton of beading
    books, so any advice that you have would be much appreciated. 

    I was for a while stringing necklaces using silk thread but that
    poses production problems as well. The brand of thread that I use
    only comes in small sizes and it is not large enough for the holes of
    these beads. Often some of the larger beads are not reamed uniformly
    or smoothly inside and they would actually break the necklaces. Also
    silk gets frayed and dirty after a while and the necklaces need to be
    restrung. It also take more of my labor to knot the jewelry, so I then
    have to pass that price on to the customers. 

    Any advice that you would have about stringing and crimping with
    beadalon -- or any other material that you might suggest which is
    more durable -- would be greatly appreciated.
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