Beading wire

You can easily become overwhelmed by the types of beading wire available.  There  are variations of materials and finishes, which include gold, gold-plated, gold-filled, brass, copper, fine silver, sterling silver, silver-plated or craft wire.  Craft wire, copper and brass are usually packed in 10 to 40 yard spools, while the more expensive types of beading wire are usually sold by the foot or ounce.  When starting out it is best to get brass or copper to practise with as they are fairly easy to manipulate and cheap!

Beading Wire Hardness

A wire's malleability is descibed by it's hardness.  Sterling silver is available in two categories, half-hard or dead-soft.   If you use dead-soft then you will be able to easily bend it with your fingers.  Half-hard on the other hand is slightly stiffer, which means it holds it's shape well.  Any wire that you use will harden with use but if you want your piece to be more rigid then you may want to hammer the piece, which will flatten the wire's shape.

Wire Shape

Beading wire is available in quite a few different shapes, such as twisted, round, square, triangle and half-round.   The different shaped beading wire can be available in different gauges and you need to decide on which shape and gauge will best suit your piece.

What is the Wire gauge?

The wire gauge is the measure of the wires thickness or diameter.  The most common wire gauges to use for wire and beaded jewelry is between 12 and 28 as shown.  The larger the thickness that you need then lower the gauge number is that you need.

12 - 14 gauge wire is best used for unsupported wire shapes such as bangle braclets and neck wires.  They are only available as dead-soft hardness.

16 - 18 gauge wire is medium thickness and sturdy.  This wire is frequently used to make large jump rings, clasps and chain mail.

20 - 22 gauge wire is used as an all-purpose wire for many findings such as jump rings, loops, eye pins and head pins.  You can have this wire in dead-soft or half-hard.

24 - 26 gauge wire is usually refered to as ultrafine wire.  This wire can be used for beaded flowers, wire wrapping and wire wrapping.  It is also frequently used with gemstones and small pearls.

28 gauge wire and thinner wires are used for delicate applications such as beaded flowers.  Also if pearls and gemstones have tiny holes then this gauge wire may be required. 

Hopefully this information will come in useful to you in the future, Artbeads.com has all the products you need to get started at great prices.

Beading crafts for kids are easy projects for rainy days.