Monday, December 5th, 2011 at 12:10 am
by Rose Marion, Wire-Sculpture.com
Tool of the Week for
December 5, 2011
sponsored by JewelryTools.com
This week’s tool: RS Mizar Gold Tester, Item # TES-174.00
Demonstration by Kate, JewelryTools.com
| This week’s featured tool from JewelryTools.com is the TES-174.00 RS Mizar Gold Tester. This gold tester is small and portable, but it’s sensitive enough to tell the difference between gold plate, 10kt, 14kt, and 18kt gold. Not sure if those ear wires are gold or gold-plated? Find out. Or one of your many services as a jewelry artist – besides your original designs and jewelry repairs – could be gold testing for your family and friends’ jewelry.
This reminds me of another tip: someone recently asked about gold wire and gold-filled wire, because they’d mixed the solid gold and the gold-filled wires up on accident. Simply weigh the same length of wire on a sensitive scale: Gold is heavier than brass, so the heavier wire will be the solid gold!
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Click below to see TES-174.00 on JewelryTools.com:
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Friday, June 4th, 2010 at 1:01 am
Daily Wire Jewelry Making Tip
June 04, 2010
Question:
I am trying to make the bracelet that is the first project on your Beginner’s DVD. I am having great difficulty keeping all the wires together. I keep straightening the wires, and yet the wires do not lay flat. What am I doing wrong? I am using 21-gauge half round half hard sterling silver wire and gold plated wire.
Answer:
The first thing I saw in your question was that you are using half-round wire for the bindings. Please try this design using the wire shape called for: half-hard square. If your base wires are not as straight as they can possibly be, then while making the bracelet bundle, at least make them all go in the same direction. In this way when you draw them up through your hands while taping, they should lay together nicely, as you are forming a ‘plank’. When using the power of square half-hard wire to wrap, even if your bundle is slightly curved, the wraps should be strong enough to bind the plank-shaped bundle. (If you insist on using a small half-round, half-hard, be prepared to add a LOT more wraps than the design calls for, as this gauge is not strong enough to do the job you expect it to.)
On any pattern, if you are beginning, please follow the author’s specifications regarding wire gauges/tempers/shapes, as we do this for a reason – they work! When you have become proficient with a technique, then you can try to alter the design/wire tempers, shapes & gauges to make variations of that design.
Answer contributed by Dale “Cougar” Armstrong
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