hey everyone! jessica here from jewelrytutorialhq.com. in my last video, we talked about what kindof tools you need to get started making wire wrapped jewelry. in this video today, we'regoing to cover another frequently asked question, which is what kind of jewelry wire do i needfor wire wrapping? well, first, let me just clarify that wirewrapping is a pretty broad term, so that can actually mean quite a few different things.in this video today, the type of wire wrapping that i'm going to be talking about is whati just refer to as basic wire wrapping. so to me, that means things like wire wrappedloops and links, wire wrapped dangles, and briolettes, and things like that.
some other types of wire wrapping projectsmay have different requirements when it comes to the type of jewelry wire that you needto use for those. we might talk about some of those anothertime, but for today, this next part of the video is an excerpt from my new course, wirewrapping for beginners, and the type of wire wrapping that i teach you in that course isthis basic wire wrapping. so, i just wanted to put that in context so that you can keepthat in mind as i'm talking about what kind of wire will or won't work for the projects. if you would like to learn more about wirewrapping for beginners, i will put a link below the video or you can simply visit jewelrytutorialhq.com/courses.but for now, let's talk about jewelry wire!
in this lesson, i'm going to give you a briefoverview of the basic properties of jewelry wire. there are a lot of options out thereand they can be somewhat overwhelming, so i'm going to break it down for you and hopefullymake it a little bit less confusing for you when you go to buy your wire. i've also got some really great resourcesin the supplementary materials section, so if you need more information about any ofthese things, i'm sure you'll find the answers there. in this example from amazon, you can see thatthere is a lot of information about what type of wire this is, and i'm going to go throughand help you make sense of what all these
things mean. by the way, this it not what i want you tobuy - i'm just showing you this as an example of how many factors you're going to have todecide on when you're shopping around for your wire. also, these things are not necessarily goingto be listed in this order, so please keep that in mind. so first, we have our material, that's whatthe wire is made of, in this case is sterling silver. next, it tells us the shape of the wire, whichin this case is half round. then it tells us the hardness, or the temperof the wire, which here is half hard.
then we have the gauge, or the size of thewire. this wire is 20 gauge wire. and of course, the 5 feet there is just the quantity of wireyou get if you purchase this item. so, now what do all of these things mean?let's go through them one by one and i'll tell you what you should or shouldn't usefor the projects in this course. material:there are tons of different jewelrywire materials out there, and it's important to know that they all behave differently.different metals have different properties which affect the way they act when we tryto manipulate them. some materials are too soft, and some aregoing to be too hard, which i'll explain more when we talk about wire hardness. what youneed to know is this:
for this course, craft wire is too soft, artisticwire is too soft, aluminum wire is too soft. if the wire doesn't specify what materialit's made of, or what temper the wire is, then it's probably too soft. stainless steel wire is going to be too hard,and memory wire is going to be too hard and is not appropriate for wire wrapping. those are all the things you should stay awayfrom for this course. now, copper, silver, brass, silver filled,gold filled, and german style wire are perfect to use for the type of wire wrapping thatwe're going to be doing in this course. i highly recommend that you stick to thosematerials as long as they are half hard or
medium temper, which again, we'll cover ina minute. i usually recommend that beginners start outwith an inexpensive practice wire instead of practicing using more expensive materialslike sterling silver and gold filled. so, copper, brass, and the german style wireare excellent inexpensive options for beginners to use as practice wire, and that's wherei recommend that you start. shape: wire shape is simply the shape of thewire's cross section, or the cut end. the most common jewelry wire shapes are round,which is what we're using in this course, half round, which is flat on one side androunded on the other, square, and twisted wire. half round wire is not used for this typeof wire wrapping so be sure that when you're
purchasing wire you're choosing round wire,not half round wire. square wire and twisted wire can both actuallybe used in the same ways as plain round wire for the types of projects that we'll be making,for the most part, so that's something to keep in mind in the future when you're comfortablewith the techniques and ready to experiment with some other options. i do recommend learning with round wire firstbefore you move on to square or twisted wire, however. hardness: wire hardness or wire temper isbasically how stiff the wire is. we want to use half hard or medium temper wire in allof the projects in this course. the other options are soft, or dead soft,and hard, or full hard, which are respectively
too soft and too hard for what we're goingto be doing. when wire is too soft, it won't hold its shape,so your wire wraps will bend and smush and be very unsightly which is not at all whatwe're going for. when the wire is too hard, it's too difficultto form into the shapes that we want. so in both cases, using the wrong wire only leadsto frustration and disappointment. if you're looking at a wire that doesn't specifythe temper, that's usually a sign that it's too soft, usually dead soft, and not appropriatefor this course. again, craft wire, artistic wire, and aluminumwire are usually dead soft in temper so please stay away from those for this course.
size: the size or diameter of a wire is alsoreferred to as its gauge. the first thing i want you to know and commit to memory isthat the smaller the gauge number, the larger the wire. so, 14 gauge is quite thick, and 24 gaugewire is quite fine. it's also important to know that not all countries use the same gaugemeasuring system, so please be aware of that while shopping for your wire. i always refer to gauges based on the awgsystem, which is what's used in north america. europe and other parts of the world may usethe swg system, and many countries don't use a gauge system at all and simply refer tothe wire by its actual measurement.
the awg and swg gauge numbers are not thesame, so that could be a little bit confusing if you don't realize. again, i'll have somesupplementary material including some conversion charts for you to help you out there, andi will provide the measurements alongside the gauge in all of the project supply listsso that you can be sure that what you're purchasing is the right size wire. if you'd like to learn more about differentwire materials, shapes, hardness, and gauges, and different things that you use them for,i'm providing some very informative articles in the supplementary materials section forthis lesson. if you have any questions about anything we'vecovered here, please don't hesitate to ask,
but if you could, please first peruse thearticles - there's a really good chance that your questions will be answered there. thank you so much for watching! i hope yougot all the information you needed about what kind of jewelry wire to use for making wirewrapped jewelry. don't forget, if you'd like to learn moreabout wire wrapping for beginners, there's a link below the video, or you can click righthere on your screen or you can simply visit jewelrytutorialhq.com/courses. i've even unlocked a couple of free previewlessons so that you can take a peek at some of the videos that are actually in the course.if you have any questions, please let me know.
thanks again! i'll see you soon.
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