Actually I think twisting it will work fine for mass
production too, if I give up on the fancy wrap styles (which I
never make now anyway). So between you and Dave Arens, this is the
way I'll go as far as hardening my wire. I actually did know that
twisting work hardens, but totally blanked on that info when I
needed it.
I’ve been following this thread and the idea of twisting the wire to
work harden it is new to me.
So here’s my dumb question: when you twist it, do you then untwist
it back to straight to use it for the ear wires? Or do you then
have to have twisted ear wires as your style of ear wires? That
would seem to be uncomfortable… How do you get the wire back very
straight again?
... when you twist it, do you then untwist it back to straight to
use it for the ear wires?
Hello Nan,
I think there might be some confusion here. If you take a piece of
wire, hold it taught between two pairs of pliers, for instance, and
twist the wire by turning one pair of pliers (like you would
turn/twist/call-it-what-you-will a screwdriver) your wire is still
straight.
There’s nothing to straighten out because you haven’t bent your wire.
If you do it right you end up with a work-hardened piece of wire that
is just as straight, or even straighter, than when you started.
Part of the trick to this is to keep the wire under some tension
while you twist it. That helps ensure that it ends up dead straight
and even twisted along it’s length.
Sometimes you’ll get a faint corkscrew pattern along the length of
the wire but (a) that doesn’t happen very often and (b) is usually no
big deal if it does.
Nan, when you twist a single round wire, it sort-of twists into
itself, and still looks round. You wouldn’t un-twist it.
While I don’t twist wire for earwires (a little soft hammer tap or
two and tumble for awhile works great for me), I do twist round wire
for use in pin backs. Makes the wire very stiff, and it does stay
smooth.
So here's my dumb question: when you twist it, do you then
untwist it back to straight to use it for the ear wires? Or do you
then have to have twisted ear wires as your style of ear wire
When you twist the wire, you twist 1 piece of wire about it’s own
axis. After twisting the wire is harder than before it was twisted.
You form the twisted wire into the earwire & cut it to length.
I've been following this thread and the idea of twisting the
wire to work harden it is new to me. So here's my dumb question:
when you twist it, do you then untwist it back to straight to use
it for the ear wires?
Actually this only works for round wire. Anything else will get a
spiral twist when you do this (like square or half-round or what
have you).
Round wire just goes round and round and round and round until you
give up or it snaps. You won’t see a twist (or spiraling) in a single
pieced of round wire being twisted.