using jewelry wire, what do the gauges mean?

Question

I'm new to making jewelry and right now I'm focusing on necklaces and earrings, and I was just wondering what the gauges on jewelry wire mean and which kind would be best for earrings/necklaces

so if anyone could recommend me some good wire Id really appreciate it :)

Answer 1

Gauges are pretty much just the width of the jewelry. For example, earrings can range like crazy! You can stretch your lobs out to reach a certain size with different sized pieces. The smaller the number the larger the gauge size. I believe, and I could be wrong, that typical ears are like 18 g, or 20 g. I'm leaning more toward 18 mainly because I can fit a 16 in my lobes due to heavy earrings.



Hope this helps! You could also check out jewelry at a local shop and see if it has the sizes on the package/tag.

Answer 2

Your best bet is to go to some of the wire jewelry sites to find out about the dead-soft and half-hard stuff... that's generally only something that experienced wire-workers concern themselves with.



I'd just start with the regular old gold or silver "jewelry wire" that's sold at bead stores, craft stores, etc (usually 20 gauge).... it's totally fine unless you want to get into high-quality metals or lots of manipulation.

Plain old copper wire can be fun to play with too, and it's a bit softer and more malleable than some of the others. Oh and yes, the larger the gauge number, the thinner the wire in diameter (which is what "gauge" refers to).



You might want to check out the Wire page at my site too for some links and info about wireworking:

http://glassattic.com/polymer/wire.htm





HTH,



Diane B.

Answer 3

Gauge measures the diameter of wires, or other round shapes.

http://www.graphicproducts.com/supplies/wire_gauge.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge