Early on, I was pretty sure I was going to use some kind of wire to hold the table together. I remembered working on a craft project with my daughter when she was young. It was a chandelier-like sun catcher with two MDF rings suspended by wires, with glass pieces glued around the rings and hanging from dangling wires. I remembered us having to crimp wires with little tubes to hold the rings in place. So I thought I could do something similar. I just couldn't remember any of the specifics.

My research led me into the jewelry making world, specifically beading. I learned that I needed beading wire and crimp tubes. So I drove to the local JoAnn Fabric store and found the jewelry making aisle. I was paralyzed by indecision for at least half an hour. (I'm glad they didn't kick me out of the store for loitering.) There were so many types of wire and all sorts of clasps and connectors. I had no idea what would work, so I decided to just try out some thin wire and the only crimp tubes I saw.

The wire is only 0.24" (0.6mm) thick, and the crimp tubes are 2mm high with an outer diameter of 2mm-tiny materials. At this point, I didn't have any special crimpers, so I just did some tests using needle nose pliers to mash the crimp tubes. The wire and crimps were plenty strong for this application.

I still thought I'd be better off with more suitable crimpers. They were out of stock at the local craft stores, but I found Xuron 404 crimpers/pliers on Amazon. They had excellent reviews and also serve as small needle nose pliers, so they seemed worth buying even if I never crimped again.

The only other tool I used was something to cut and trim the wire. For that, I just used the side cutters I already owned. Smaller ones might be nice, but not essential.

The crimpers are easy to use. Here are the instructions from the package. To see an actual demo (using different crimpers), look at the Crimping chapter of the YouTube video Stringing Fundamentals - Beaducation.com.

Here's an actual crimp.

Here's a demonstration of the wire/crimp strength. That's a full gallon of paint (weighing around 10-12 pounds). There's a crimped loop on each end of that length of beading wire.

With the wiring settled, it was time to return to the pyramid assembly.