Читать книгу Making Copper Wire Earrings - Lora S. Irish - Страница 9

Wire thickness is measured in gauge, with smaller numbers denoting thicker wire. In this image, copper wires of four different gauges were wrapped around a 1 ¼" (3cm)–wide medicine bottle to create identically sized hoop links. From top to bottom, the gauges used are 14, 16, 18, and 20. All four hoop links are wrapped using 28-gauge wire.

While any link can be created from wire of any gauge, in general, for the projects in this book, 18- and 20-gauge wire is used as the main earring link wire, as these gauges are strong enough to hold their shape but light enough to work as earrings. 20-, 24-, and 26-gauge wire is used throughout the projects for the wire-wrapping steps, as thinner wire is more flexible when woven through the bends of the links.

Equivalents

Most jewelry wire is packaged and sold with a US gauge size and a UK millimeter size, but just in case you’re in the UK and don’t have the US gauge, here is a quick reference chart of US gauge and its equivalent millimeter size.

Gauge	Millimeters
12	2mm
14	1.6mm
16	1.3mm
18	1mm
20	0.8mm
22	0.6mm
24	0.5mm
26	0.4mm
28	0.3mm
30	0.25mm
32	0.2mm

From top to bottom, the wire gauges used for these hoops are 14, 16, 18, and 20.

The contrast of wire gauges is very obvious in this set, which uses 18-gauge and 30-gauge wire.