Bezel wire

Jewelry Discussion
1

G’day; A couple of week ago I had the need to make stud
cabochon earrings which needed bezel settings. so, I ordered
some fine silver strip and specified the size as;

2mm X 0.5mm X I metre, Fine (pure) silver

and got exactly that from a NZ bullion merchant inside one day
by courier from the other end of the country. And it wasn’t
costly. I am sure your metal suppliers in the US can do as
well. . It is excellent for making almost any type of bezel
required. It might need annealing before use, but then it is
really flexible and able to be shaped to fit irregular shapes if
needed. My point is that one should specify exactly what one
wants; just “bezel wire” could be almost anything.
Cheers,

/\

/ /
/ / @John_Burgess2
/ /___| \ at sunny Nelson NZ They’ve just forecast
fine
weather!
(______ )

2 
  My point is that one should specify exactly what one    
wants;  just "bezel wire"   could be almost anything.

You’re right John, although one may specify “bezel wire” no one
bothers to ask what size. There is Small, med, and High (Rio
carries higher than the normal HIGH bezel wire . . .) When
ordering, sometimes it’s tough to figure out exactly what one needs
. . . so I usually order all three available from IJS (Indian
Jewelers Supply) or Thunderbird. For the real HIGH stuff, I just
purchase 26 G sheet and cut my own . . . using a good paper cutter
(straight blade . . . made of metal on a wooden base - not
plastic.)

Then one has to decide whether they want scalloped, stepped, or
what looks like a saw blade edge. . . hmmm. Decisions, decisions,
decisions!

3

Hi Gang,

Another way to get bezel wire is ‘roll your own’.

That’s right, if you’ve got a mill, just roll a short length of
wire to the thickness you want. Use thicker guages for higher
bezel wire.

Dave

4 
    That's right, if you've got a mill, just roll a short length
of wire to the thickness you want. Use thicker guages for higher
bezel wire.

So, you’re saying that you can take fine silver wire and roll it
to make the bezel wire (no wonder they call it “wire!”) Makes
sense, and it should end up being the same size throughout the
roll.

5

Regarding rolling out round wire to make bezel ‘wire’:

Keep the wire straight as it goes through the mill, preferably
with a person at each end pulling the wire to keep it taught,
otherwise it will go through crooked and wind up irregular and
won’t be very good for bezels.

The wire gets longer as well as slightly wider. As an example, 2
mm round anneled sterling silver wire, when rolled down to 1mm,
stretches 1.28 times the beginning length. It also becomes becomes
2.6 mm wide. Both are predictable and it is sometimes important to
know just how much the metal will stretch, for instance to conserve
materials or to acheive a specific width. There is a table with
this inforamtion called, “Rolling Wire flat” in Professional
Goldsmithing. -Alan Revere

1 Like
6

Hi,

 So, you're saying that you can take fine silver wire  and roll
it to make the bezel wire (no wonder they call it "wire!")

You can roll any kind of wire, copper, brass, sterling, gold, etc
to flatten it. The sides of the now flattened wire will not be
straight, they’ll have a slight radius to them. Don’t know if I’d
try any ferrous or exotic metals though, unless the hardness of the
rolls & material to be rolled is known.

Dave