Pliers for Jewelry
If you want to try your hand at making your own jewelry, here are the basic tools I use when making mine.
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Bent nose pliers from Harbor Freight. They're OK now that I filed off the rough edges. If you're buying from HF, buy some files while you're at it, especially since you may need them for other porposes eventually anyway if you work with metal. This style of pliers is handy because they keep your support hand out of the way of whatever you're doing.
Needle nose pliers from a jewelry toolkit. The jaws of jewelry pliers must be smooth. Any texture mars your work. This set also includes a cutting jaw. Some also include nylon sleeves for extra protection of your workpiece, and I may buy some of those next. In a pinch, some masking tape can be a good temporary protective measure.
Flush cutting pliers are a specific type of snips or cutting pliers that leave one side of the cut as perpendicular as possible. This set is actually from Mantic Games, because they're the ones I use for clipping plastic model pieces from their frames. Unfortunately, I tried to cut some wire that was tougher than the jaws, and now they have a notch. Oops. Some file work cleaned up most of the damage, but they need replacing.
Round nose pliers are used for forming loops. This is a specialty tool that will probably need to be bought from a craft store or online. My set is not as sturdy as I would like, but it works.
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Crimp pliers are used in jewelry to secure crimp beads to wire or cordage to form loops. These are craft store tools, but similar tools are also used by electeicians. I can't guarantee electrician's pliers would be delicate enough for jewelry work, but feel free to comment below if you have found them suitable.
I don't know the proper name for these green-handled pliers. The jaws have a sort of beak that I find useful for separating split rings. I would probably recommend buying proper split ring pliers though. I may do that soon if I find myself using them more often.
I plan to start a series of posts on how to use these tools, so follow my account to learn more about how to make your own jewelry or repair broken items you may have lying about!