Draw plates

[china]

A question about draw plates, I have persevered with economy plates for many years, time to upgrade my question is are the Tungsten insert types as good as they are claimed to be, or should I just go with high quality carbon steel.

[ps_bond]

I've been using a decent set of tungsten plates for all my round wire for years; for non-round shapes, I tend to use French or Italian made steel plates.

They give a decent polish on the wire as it's drawn down, using a bit of beeswax (oil's probably better, but messy). Only downside is the inserts are set into aluminium, so if you've decided to use magnets to hold your drawplate in place they're strangely ineffective...

[china]

I might give The tungsten a look, I don't use magnets my draw bench has springs, I built my own bench and the plates kept dropping on the floor when the wire exited so I added springs.

[nicks creative stuff]

Would make an interesting read if people have opinions between tungsten and steel plates. Pulling wire is one of my favourite techniques and I have a variety of the Italian steel plates. Just started making sterling silver for pulling into wire and have recently succeeded in making 4.5m of 1mm round. Just happens to be my latest vid … ha … ha … https://youtu.be/6ZnpTCwMDRY … a happy hobbyist … Nick

[ps_bond]

Ah, a CostCo member

Surprised you haven't built a drawbench yet - it'll make the thicker wire much smoother to draw.

OK, that's 1mm... Keep going I do down to .25mm, partly for the laser (sometimes I only need a small amount of something odd), but it's also useful in inlay & damascene.
Easiest with fine gold of course!

What people sometimes forget is that going from 1mm to 0.25 is "only" 0.75mm, but it's a 16-fold reduction in cross-sectional area, which is why it's such a pig.

[nicks creative stuff]

I would’ve never of bought a bar online, but seeing one twinkle in a cabinet was irresistible … N

[nicks creative stuff]

Definitely Peter, have been meaning to have a go at making something and rely less on brute force. Love how easy it is once down to 1mm. Drawing down soft gold must be very satisfying. I’ve often wondered if my metalwork tig couldn’t be used for jewellery, it has a lot of settings that I’ve not used yet. However a microscope must be an expensive pat of a setup. Had to google damascene … has an interesting look … always something new to discover with jewellery making … cheers … Nick