Heavy Gauge Sterling Silver Wire

[Sandra]

Hello all,

I am very new into jewellery making so forgive me if I sound extremely green! I have for the past few months been purchasing tools and supplies and am now to the point now I have enough to get started on some projects!

I was going through my materials and found I have a 12 inch piece of round 5.00mm sterling silver wire, though I would describe it as more of a rod. I actually meant to order a much finer wire and got confused with the mm measurements.

My question is now that I have it, does anyone have suggestions on what I could create with this??

[Dennis]

Hi Sandra,

I sympathise as I am forever dropping decimal points. In fact my floor is littered with them :-).

It will be difficult to do anything with this lump of metal unless you join a part time jewellery class where they have a rolling mill and/or a draw bench, which would quickly reduce it to a usable dimension.

That said, I do use that wire as a peg for this type of belt buckle, but only rarely. Welcome to the forum. Dennis.

It has occurred to me, that your supplier might be persuaded to take it back, or draw it down into a few useful sizes for a modest fee.

[Sandra]

Thank you for the reply. Do you think it could be cut to a shorter length and hammered into a cuff bracelet perhaps??

[caroleallen]

Yes, you could do that. You'd need to anneal it first. Keep it in the 12" length until you've hammered it as you won't be able to work out how long it will become.

[Goldsmith]

I second what Carole said, and I would suggest that you used a slightly domed face hammer and hammer the silver on a clean steel surface when doing this, to avoid any nasty hammer edgs digs in your metal strip.

James

[medusa]

Couldn't you anneal and bend it into a torque? If you don't roll or hammer it down but decide to use it at this size, I'd be very curious to see what you do with it because I'm looking to work on some similar gauges next year.

[mizgeorge]

I've used this sort of size (and a little bigger) for bangles, both torque and closed. It's also a great size for practising hinged bangles. It's also a nice gauge for drop pendants, either left as a cylinder (with some texture or even stamping) or forged to a graduation on one end, then flipped through 90 degrees and forged on the other end. You do need to anneal pretty regularly, but it's perfectly workable.

[medusa]

George, how did you find bending it to shape? I'm looking to eventually make a hinged collar (thanks to the lovely Chaz Lewton Braine ) but the technicalities of getting the stuff bent into shape is concerning me. I had thought to get both ends soldered together and then bang into shape over a mandrel. I'm hoping I'll be able to apply enough heat for it.

[mizgeorge]

I've not done a neck size version, but for a bangle it's just anneal, bend, rinse and repeat. I only have a bangle mandrel, and find I don't need to bash that much at all. I do start with a longer piece than I need to get some extra leverage though.

[caroleallen]

In the Alan Revere book there are instructions for making a hollow collar.