I have a question…
I work with silver wire, and want to transition to gold. Will I be
able to manually work (bend, etc.) with 14K, or should I work with
18K; I generally use 10 and 12 gauge wires. Thanks!
Hi Prae,
The real question isn’t whether or not you can bend it, (you can)
but whether or not you can afford it. In 10ga, you’ll be stunned by
the price difference, even now that prices have come down a bit.
On a more serious note, 14K nickel white is a pain in the tail.
(hard as hell. I’ve seen it dent cheap hammers) But you can bend it.
14K palladium white is much nicer to fabricate with.
14K yellow and red are just fine to bend. (Keeping in mind that I do
a lot with 4 gauge titanium. So my standards of "not too bad"may not
be the same as yours.) None of them are as nice as 18K, but they’re
a lot tougher. That’s probably a good thing.
You can ‘manually’ bend just about anything under 3-4 mm or so, it
just depends on how hard you’re willing to work, and how sneaky you
are at not working hard. I’m a big fan of wrenches, padded vises,
anvils, stakes and other things to bend around or over. I also picked
up a set of ring bending pliers when I started doing the heavy Ti
wire work. (From Otto Frei. Here:
http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/ep81s1 They’re expensive, but they
really make a difference. )
FWIW,
Brian
Works a little harder, but is a lot easier in other ways. Rob
Rob Meixner