Beading Wire vs. Silver Wire
I recently had someone email me who was thoroughly confused about the difference between beading wire and silver wire. Supposedly, she had purchased beading wire at a floral decorating store and was soldering it with a soldering iron. She sold whatever she had made, but then was concerned that the piece might fall apart.
Okay, rule of thumb number one - never sell anything you make if you aren’t sure about its integrity. First of all, how would you like the be the customer who buys a piece of jewelry only to have it fall apart? Second, how do you think this kind of sale will affect you in the future when you may have more of a handle on what you’re doing?
Stepping off soap box now…
Let me try to put this in a nutshell:
Beading wire is not actually wire in the sense that most people imagine where you can bend and wrap it. It is actually thin piece of stainless steel wire that has been twisted together and then coated. It is used for bead stringing and is especially good to use with heavy beads such as lampwork or crystals. There are a number of different manufacturers who make beading wire including Soft-Flex, Beadalon, and Accuflex.
Silver Wire is actually wire, metal that has been rolled and stretched to form wire. It can come in a number of varieties such as fine silver, sterling silver, or nickel silver. Silver wire is not coated, unless you get silver plated wire and that’s a whole other blog post. It is used for wire wrapping or making wire components. While it could be used for bead stringing, it’s pretty rare that I’ve seen that because it would normally be too stiff and the finished beaded pieced would not drape like you would normally expect.
For more information on bead stringing, see Get Started: Bead Stringing.
For more information about wire, see Types of Wire.
For more information about various bead stringing medium, see Struggling with String.
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POSTED IN: Basics - Getting Started, Beading, Wire
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