I recently made a bangle out of 16 gauge wire that it too stretchy. Should I add solder between the twists to stabilize the considerable amount of stretch.
MY PROCESS: I folded 16G wire in half, hand twisted it to my liking, then folded that in half again and twisted again. (annealed many times as needed) I took that length, ran it through my rolling mill to flatten ever so slightly. Beautiful result!
I formed this piece into a circle and then soldered the ends shut.
Once soldered and cleaned up I stretched it on the steel bracelet mandrel and used a planishing hammer to work harden it. It stretched and stretched and stretched.
The look is beautiful and I’d like to solve the stretch problem before making it out of sterling silver.
Any suggestions?
If you have access to a kiln, you can try to heat harden it at 500 degrees F for 60 minutes. Make sure it is clean, coat with boric acid and alcohol then harden. Polish again. You may be able to do this with a toaster oven. Others may have different ideas. Good luck…Rob
Thanks for the heads up on hardening the stretchy twist wire bangle .!I know some potters and will ask about the temp in their kiln. As luck would have it, I just gave away my toaster oven!
I’ve also thought that adding some solder on the twists (inside the bangle) may help stabilize the stretch. Any thoughts?
Thanks Joanne
It might, but at the same time you are annealing everything again losing all the hardening that your previous measures created. You also will lose some of the detail between the twists…Rob