Best Bead Stringing Materials

Pick a stringing material by three numbers and one decision. The numbers are diameter, breaking strength, and the size of the hole in your beads: a 0.018 inch cable slides through most gemstone rounds and takes a size two crimp, while anything above roughly 0.024 inch stops dead at seed beads and pearls. Braided cable made from many stainless steel strands drapes better as strand count rises, from seven strands at the stiff end to forty nine at the soft end, and it survives the sawing action of a rough drilled hole better than any fiber will. The decision is how the ends get finished, because cable is crimped, silk and nylon are knotted, and elastic is tied and glued, which means the material choice happens before the clasp choice rather than after it. Fiber cords earn their place where beads should sit softly against each other, and a twisted nylon or a silk card with the needle already attached is what pearl knotting needs, since the knot between each bead has to be small enough to vanish into the hole. Elastic in the 0.7 to one millimeter range removes the clasp entirely at the cost of a shorter life. Memory wire dodges both problems by holding its own coil, but it will notch a fine cutter, so keep an old pair for it.