Working with silver wire
Hello!
I've been flameworking for about three years and I'm always trying something new. I ordered fine silver wire 26 gauge to add to my beads to get that extra bling. I've never worked with wire and don't want to waste it so can someone give me some pointers on how to add it to my beads in the flame. Any help is greatly appreciated! |
Welcome to LE, Cheena!
I have only worked with silver wire on beads a couple of times, and they were less than successful. The main problem was the wire dots popping off. I'm sorry I don't have any real information for you, but I'll bet someone will chime in. |
Hi Cheena, I will say that is a large gauge and you have a higher risk of the silver popping off, as Teri has stated. Usually 28 or 30 gauge is ideal. But marver the silver onto the bead after you have wrapped it, while it is still hot. This will help press more of the silver into the bead and be more sturdy. It would also be nice encased.
Edited to add 28 to 30 gauge, sorry for the misspell |
Actually, I use even smaller gauge. I use 32g, make my bead, spot heat a small area to glowing orange, stick the end of the wire into the hot spot (using tweezers, silver wire heats up really fast!), then wrap it where you want the silver to be placed on the bead. Either burn off or snip off. Marver silver wire down to the surface of the glass, re-enter the flame and get the surface of the glass just sticky, the silver will ball up. Re-marver to sink the balls into the surface just a little, then flame polish. Pop into the kiln.
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Kristin, do you mean 28 or 30 gauge? That is what I use and it works great.
Warm the bead, then heat a spot. Poke the end of the wire in the heated spot and turn your bead so the wire wraps around it. Once you have the amount of wire you want on there, flame cut the wire. Put the bead in the outer flame and let the wire melt into dots. Heat the bead and lightly marver to let dots sink into the bead...that's it. |
I do it just like ESC stated. The marvering the wire on then marvering once it's in balls sinks it into the glass a bit better
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yes I meant 30, thanks Norma. If I could find 32 I would probably try to use that instead. Where do you find that, Esc?
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Got it from Rio a hundred years ago. I really don't remember how much silver was at that time, but it was cheap, cheap, cheap. I bought a troy ounce on a reel.
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thanks
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Thank you everybody! I'm new to this site and have leaned on you folks for years regarding all my lampworking questions and knew I could count on you for recommendations!
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I'm starting with silver wire as well and I've tried the "wrap and melt into dots" method, which works well for me, but it always leaves the brown/grey trails in between the dots, where the wire originally was.
Is there any way to prevent it from making those? Or alternatively, are there any other ways of using silver wire? |
There's not really any way to prevent the trails on most opaque glass. On transparent, it's less of an issue. If you really don't want the trails, you'll have to encase your opaque with transparent and then do you silver wire. Conversely, if the trail isn't really bad, you can etch the bead and get rid of the trail that way.
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Thanks, i was having the same problem with the trails and moved to something new. I think I will dig out the wire and try it again.
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Hi Figaro. I've only ever used acid to etch, bit it would be pretty simply to use a Dremel and some 3M bristle brushes to shine up the silver again.
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Uncoated silver is going to tarnish in the open air eventually.
Maybe you could spot cover the silver dots you want to keep with a thin stringer of clear and then etch or tumble after it comes out of the kiln to remove the brown / grey trails? Just throwing out ideas here. |
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