On the Bench -work hardening wire

When making jewelry from wire especially in creating findings for closures and earwires you need to work harden the wire so it does not give when wearing. This is especially important on jumprings and your closures for as we all know your jewelry can get caught on anything pulling rings open or bending your closures opening it resulting in losing that very expensive and time consuming bracelet or necklace.

*A few steps I take are bending while working (normal designing benefit), hammering and also tumbling.

Here is my wire corner of the studio showing a loverly bouquet of purchased and found with some electrician wire awaiting to be re-purposed that is hanging. This scrap you can easily find in 10 and 12 gauge while you search and find from other online sources for 'new'.  I mainly use 20, 18, 16,  14, 12 and 10 while always searching the shoppes for copper, sterling silver and brass tubing.

hammers work harden wire beautifully while adding texture and personality to the pieces.   A raw hide mallet , 8th from the bottom, is what jewelry artists use to harden without marking the metal.  These hammers are also part of the collection I use to paint texture on metal printed/stamped work.

I use Dawn dish soap, a dollop in, as you see warm water just covering the pieces being tumbled. 

drying the steel shot after tumbling some Doctor Who pendants for it will rust if let to set in the soap/water in the barrel.  

wire while wrapping becomes workhardened and is also very important on a piece such as this bracelet for the  4 customer found treasures (steel shot) design components are not beads and need to be contained securely in the wire encasing them as well as the jumprings.

16 gauge copper wire created crimp hook and swirl closures which I recently made were design hardened, hammered and tumbled for strength.

Such simple steps to keep all of your hardwork safe and in place.

enjoy, xoxo