Sherri S.:What does the rubber coating do? My pliers grip fine, but using half-hard wire I find I have to grip harder to make the bends in the wire.
The coating basically just absorbs a bit of your tension, rather than putting it into the wire. It also makes your pliers leave less dents in general, since it makes them entirely smooth. I haven't used much wire above 20 gauge, so I'm not sure if it would do the same thing with 18ga+, although I've heard that it does.
Another thing to try (although you may already be doing it) is to sort of use the motion to make the bends, instead of just the pliers. As in, .. hm. Hard to explain! ... When I make a loop, for example, I try to use the motion of making the curve to make the loop, rather than gripping really hard with the pliers. I have no idea if that makes any sense at all! ><; I guess it's one of those things that's easy to get if you get it, and hard to get if you don't? And I'm just not very good at explaining things. Sorry! :x