Style, durability, and hardness are a few of the considerations involved your choice of jewelry wire for a jewelry project.  First and foremost, the finished piece of jewelry must be durable enough to stand up to the wear and tear that is expected for the finished jewelry component.  Second, the hardness of the jewelry wire must be appropriate for the design.  (Spirals don't work well with half-hard or hard wire.)  Finally, the selection of wire must be esthetically pleasing in both color and size. 

First some background facts on jewelry wire.  Almost all jewelry wire in the US is sold in sizes defined by the American Wire Gauge.  In this standard as the gauge of the wire increases, the size of the wire decreases.  As an example 16 gauge wire is much larger than 22 gauge wire.  As the wire gets larger, or the gauge gets smaller, the wire becomes harder to bend.  Simply put, it is easier to bend thin wire than it is to bend thick wire.  In general, wire components for earrings are made in 20 gauge wire, wire components for bracelets are made in 18 or 20 gauge wire, and wire components for necklaces are made in 16 or 18 gauge wire. 18 and 20 gauge wire are relatively easy to bend and durable enough to stand up to the wear necessary.  16 gauge wire is harder to bend and probably isn't appropriate for beginners.

With inexpensive wire, like copper, brass, or Artistic Wire, the wire is generally made in only one hardness -- soft.  With more expensive jewelry wire like sterling silver, gold, or gold-filled wire, the wire is commonly manufactured in one of five hardnesses -- soft or 0, 1, half-hard or 2, 3, or fully hardened or 4.  For the jewelry making projects described in this web site, we generally only use soft or half-hard wire according to the project.  Soft wire bends easier than half-hard wire and tend to remain in place once it is bent.  Half-hard jewelry wire is somewhat springy and tends to spring back some once it is bent.  Soft wire is perfect for making spirals and other rounded shapes, but doesn't make crisp angles.  Half-hard wire makes crisp angles and wraps around itself well, but because it is springy, it must be pushed beyond where you want it to end up.

Another jewelry making issue to discuss is durability.  Jewelry wire is relatively soft by comparison with glass or stone.  The inside of glass or stone beads has small microscopic irregularities that act as the teeth on a saw and will ultimately cut thread or smaller jewelry wire.  Over time and with heavy wear, glass or stone beads can saw through wire.  This effect can be minimized by using a bead reamer to remove some of the microscopic ridges inside the bead, but it can not be eliminated.  Bracelets seem to be most vulnerable to this sawing action, but necklaces are also vulnerable.  Anything that gets a lot of wear and as a result a lot of motion by the beads is vulnerable.  The sawing action of the beads is a consideration whenever you are making a wrapped bead link connecting two wire components via a wire segment with the wire inside a bead.  In general, it is easier to make a wrapped bead link with thinner wire, but thinner wire is less durable.  22G jewelry wire is recommended for making the wrapped bead link, but for a piece that will get a lot of wear, 20G wire may be a better choice. 

The last jewelry making topic to discuss is hardening jewelry wire.  Just as during the manufacturing process wire can be made in one of several hardness's, when making jewelry a wire artist can change the hardness of a jewelry wire component.  Most of us have experience in breaking a wire coat hanger by bending it back and forth many times.  With the coat hanger, we were changing the hardness of the wire by "work hardening" it.  Each bend increased the hardness of the wire until we saw one of the drawbacks of very hard wire -- it became brittle and broke.  With our jewelry wire components we want to make them permanent, so we frequently want to increase the hardness of the wire.  This happens naturally as part of manipulating the wire into shape by work hardening.  We can use nylon jaw pliers to help with this manipulation and by squeezing the piece in the jaws of the pliers we can work harden the piece.  We can also significantly increase the hardness of the wire by hammering it with a chasing hammer or nylon hammer and anvil.  When making ear wires, using a chasing hammer will be an important step to set the round portion of the ear wire and make it permanent.  (Please note: do not hammer wire where one wire segment crosses over another piece of wire.  that can cause the wire to break.) 

Here are some do's and don'ts about choosing jewelry wire:

• In general use 20G wire for earrings, 18G wire for Bracelet components and 18 or 16 G wire for necklace components.
• In general use 20 or 22G wire for making wrapped bead links in bracelets and necklaces.
• In general don't use 22G wire to make a wire component that must stand by itself, unless that component is very small.
• In general, when buying 16G wire, buy soft wire, half-hard may be too stiff.
• In general use soft wire for spirals and half-hard wire where you will have wrapped loops.
• When making an ear wire, consider 20 or 21G wire.  22G wire is probably too thin and may be uncomfortable to wear. 
• Do not use Artistic Wire or any other dyed wire for making ear wires.  The dyes have chemicals that do not belong inside the human body. 

Published with the permission of www.wigjig.com