Tumbler for silver plated wire wraps?

Hi,

I'm a newbie to jewellery making. I've got some 0.8mm, 1mm silver plated copper wire which I've been using to wire wrap sea glass. Whilst I'm not only finding I'm marking the wire with my pliers which working with it which annoys the heck out of me I'm also worried that the wire is still quite soft after it's a 'finished' piece. I'm not up to doing the wire wrapping where you make intricate designs - I've attached an example of the first pendant I've tried so you can see what I mean. The tendrils are still soft and easily moved. I'd like them to be solid. So, could I put the whole thing safely in a tumbler? I'd love to get to use sterling silver wire but I'm not sure if the extra cost warrants what I'm doing with it?

Hope that all makes sense! Thanks in advance.
Jen
Attachment 8688

The short answer is that tumbling won't firm up your wire. As you probably know, ceramic chips might remove plier marks, but also remove the plating.
Actually you get quite a lot of wire for your money, and you have probably learned not to mark wire as much, so why not try using sterling? I think your work well merits using better wire. It could also be a little thinner in medium hard.
Dennis.

Thank you Dennis for your reply. I didn't know about ceramic chips so will have a look at that and appreciate your comments about my pendant. At least if I was using sterling silver I could use ceramic chips to remove the odd plier mark, I'll be a bit more scientific on the next one I do and make note of how much wire I use and cost it out. I have no idea what they'd possibly sell for if they were in sterling (or what I'd sell them for at a craft market as they currently stand for that matter).

Thanks again.
Jen

Well Jen, I had just returned to my computer to post this after-thought. Skilled wrappers aim not to mark the wire in the first place, by turning the wire rather than the pliers and gripping very gently.

You can also buy clear plastic tubing to fit one beak, which helps no end. Your local ironmonger or hardware shop should have a range of sizes. thatm way any marks can be kept on the inside of the coil. dennis.

Hi Jen. I occasionally wrap things and when I do I either use pure copper or sterling silver. You can get far better, higher quality results using sterling or uncoated copper rather than coated wires. It is also regarded as a quality product by potential customers too. Also you can practice using copper wire to wrap with for very little cost. Micromesh sheets or pads are very good at removing any marks that have been made by your pliers. As Dennis says though, its better not to have the marks there in the first place. As for work hardening the wire, if you use a high diameter wire, say 1.2mm upwards it will harden by the action of wrapping. Copper is also sold in 1.6mm diameter and is pretty hard already, but still malleable enough to be wrapped. Good luck with practicing.

I would be a little wary of tumbling seaglass, as you are bound to alter the texture and look of it. How much will depend on your media and length of tumbling. There are lot of people selling tumbled glass as genuine seaglass, and I would hate for anyone to think that about a piece made using the real deal!

I use a tumbler to tumble everything I make, including rings etc with semi precious stones in, I have tumbled a wire wrap seaglass pendant without any problems set in sterling wire. I dont have ceramic chips though, mine are steel (I think). My daughter has a tumbler exactly the same as mine and bought complete from the same place and her shot marks flat silver, but for some reason mine doesnt.

Sorry Pat, I should have made that a bit clearer - I was referring to tumbling with ceramics, as mentioned in the original post. I can't imagine steel shot would do too much to it if the pins are removed.

You could try and harden the wire a little before you use it by pulling it though your thumb and forefinger and putting a slight bend through it, or you could try and re-coil it on a slightly tighter reel, if you bought it on a reel. You can wrap some masking tape around your pliers to soften the edge a bit, or you might find nylon jawed pliers work for you. You should be able to firm up the tendrils by waggling or twisting them a bit with your fingers.

Thank you to everyone who has replied to my post. I'm getting a lot better at not marking the wire (I started off wrapping some tape round my pliers whilst I was still practicing!) but still not managed to progress into using sterling wire! I'm sure it's just a confidence thing as I'm not believing my pieces are good enough to be sold for enough money to warrant using sterling silver (if that makes sense!). I have bought a small hide mallet that I've started to use on the 'tails' of the wire before I start curling them. It seems to help stiffen them up so they're less fragile as a finished piece. Took a couple of bits to a craft market last month and they sold well - even though I think I'd priced them far too cheaply, but they got a good reception so it's spurred me on to do more work with the glass and have a Spring Fair booked in May to force me to get on with it...

Thanks again. Jen

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Originally Posted by radioactivesquirrel

Hi,

I'm a newbie to jewellery making. I've got some 0.8mm, 1mm silver plated copper wire which I've been using to wire wrap sea glass. Whilst I'm not only finding I'm marking the wire with my pliers which working with it which annoys the heck out of me I'm also worried that the wire is still quite soft after it's a 'finished' piece. I'm not up to doing the wire wrapping where you make intricate designs - I've attached an example of the first pendant I've tried so you can see what I mean. The tendrils are still soft and easily moved. I'd like them to be solid. So, could I put the whole thing safely in a tumbler? I'd love to get to use sterling silver wire but I'm not sure if the extra cost warrants what I'm doing with it?

Hope that all makes sense! Thanks in advance.
Jen
Attachment 8688

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Hi. I know this is an old post and you probably have become a pro by now but I thought I would reply with some tips in case someone else is looking for help. I started wire wrapping about 5 years ago in 2018 and then progressed on to doing a little bit of silversmithing. The first 2 years, I started out using the Beadalon brand silver plated German wire and bare copper wire in 20 gauge before moving on to Sterling and fine silver in various forms and gauges. I cannot attest as to whether or not you can tumble the sea glass but one of the other forum members posted that they did tumble sea glass successfully so that's good to know.

In the beginning of my learning to wire wrap jewelry, rather than buy expensive tools or pliers with nylon jaws, I bought and used the cheapest (under $10!!) set of jewelry tools I could buy and put duct tape over the jaws so it would not mar my wire (silver plated German wire and copper) and it worked beautifully. It just takes some practice working with the wire. As for work hardening the wire, I tumble my ear wires (and many other different pieces) all the time and it does in fact work harden them. I own professional tumblers but since I do not run a business and usually do not have large pieces or quantities of jewelry to tumble, it is more convenient for me to use a small Discovery brand tumbler (it was a gift and kit that included rocks) with mixed shape STAINLESS STEEL SHOT & BLUE DAWN DISH SOAP. The dish soap without citrus is VERY important for lubrication and less expensive than commercial liquid burnishing products. I use my little Discovery Tumbler to tumble every metal that I use which is copper, silver plated copper, 925 Sterling silver, 940 argentium silver, 999 fine silver, and 14k gold filled It WILL and DOES WORK HARDEN ear wires or anything else I make from any of those metals I mentioned. Granted, fine silver is a VERY SOFT metal and really not suited for ear wires so I tumble 999 Fine Silver ear wires for around 6 or 7 hours and gently hammer the curved section. I tumble the pieces that are not fine silver for a couple of hours. Again, I can't speak about tumbling sea glass but I have tumbled items that had cubic zirconia in the setting without any problems. Tumbling ear wires and jump rings is the EASIEST way to get rid of burred ends. I used to used a cup bur or wire rounder on earrings until I discovered it was a waste of time especially when tumbling did a much better job which allows me time to do something else.

The best advice I can give anyone starting out in wire wrapping, jewelry making, or silversmithing is to test things on a small scale to see whether or not you get desired results. Before I ever started working with pure silver, I purchased a small amount of silver wire in different gauges so that I could get a feel for its malleability/workability. When possible, testing something on a small scale before going all-in has always worked out pretty well for me.

If anyone survived reading my entire, very lengthy, post, I hope it was helpful.

Experiment and have fun with it! : -D

Tammy O
USA