Understanding Wire in Jewelry Making - by Eni Oken

Precious jewelry making wire (namely sterling silver, fine silver and goldfilled) can be classified in a variety of ways:

About wire material

There are two types of jewelry making wire, when it comes to materials:

1) Precious materials: sterling silver, fine silver, goldfilled and karat gold.

Sterling silver is the preferred material due to it's relatively low cost and ease of use. Sterling silver wire is mixed with a small percentage of other materials, which makes the wire more malleable but not too soft.

Fine silver has a higher content of silver than sterling, however, it can be too soft and becomes easily kinked or unraveled.

Karat gold wire is very expensive and sometimes brittle, therefore should only be used by more experienced wire wrappers.

Goldfilled wire is covered with quality gold, and is also perceived as being precious, but does not carry the expensive price tag as karat gold.

2) Craft wire: base metal, copper

Used mostly as practice material, craft wire comes in a variety of colors, however, it feels softer and manipulates differently than precious wire. Jewelry made with craft wire is usually perceived as being amateurish, unless the artist has a particularly identifiable design style.

About wire thickness

Wire is measured in gauges, where the lower numbers indicate thicker wires and higher numbers indicate thinner wires.

The most common gauges used in jewelry making range between 14ga (very thick) and 30ga (very thin).

Depending on style and designs, jewelry makers can choose any thickness they feel necessary. Some prefer to work mostly with thicker wires, resulting in chunky, sometimes ethnic looking pieces.

The designs shown in this site use both:

1) Thick wire:

The designs show in this site use thick wire ranging from 16 to 22 ga (thick to medium) as armatures over which thinner wire and beads can be attached.

2) Thin wire:

Most of the designs in this site use thin wire ranging from 24ga to 30ga, which is applied in techniques derived from needle-lace and basket weaving such as coiling and spiraling.

Rules to remember: When using very thin gauges such as 28ga to 30ga, it is very important to use sterling silver instead of fine silver, since fine silver is very soft and can come undone.

Also, when combining thick and thin wire in the techniques shown here, it is important to remember to avoid combining gauges too close to each other.

For example, if 16ga wire is used as an armature (thick wire), then 24ga or 26ga can be used as the thin wire. However, if an armature is constructed with 22 ga, then it is preferred to use 28 or even 30 ga wire as thin coiling wire.

About wire temper

Jewelry making wire comes in a variety of tempers (hardness):

1) Spring hard:

The hardest temper appropriate for jewelry making, it is only recommended for making pin backs and other very sturdy elements.

2) Half-hard:

One of the most common tempers used by jewelry makers, especially used for border wraps (a bezel around a cabochon or other non-drilled stone) or when binding wires together. In this site, half-hard wire is only used for armatures (thick gauges).

3) Soft or dead-soft:

This is the softest temper used by jewelry makers. Most examples shown in this site were made with soft wire. Thin wires (26ga and 30ga) in soft temper tend to behave like fiber and can be used in a variety of techniques, such as stitching, coiling, weaving, lacing.

When working with soft wire, it is important to remember to not manipulate it excessively, since it can become very springy and brittle.