Silver wire to melt on bead surface.

[Clare Scott]

Hullo!

Could you lovely people give me any tips on using silver wire to melt on the surface of beads?
I`ve seen some lovely beads with fine wire melted around.

I guess it needs to be sterling or solid silver?
Does it need to be treated pre or post heat?
I`ve seen 20 - 26G...any idea on size?

(I have a rough idea how thick the wire is as needles at work have a similar scale i.e 24G rabbit 22G cat, 20G dog, 18G cow...etc!! haha!!)

Thankyou
Clare

(P.S I am now the proud owner of a Minor and an Oxycon - best thing ever!!)

[Les]

It needs to be fine silver... it has a much higher purity than sterling does...sterling will leave a dirty stain on the bead after annealing...

As to thickness..... i prefer the thinner stuff as it's easy to anchor onto the bead and wrap around it..

HTH

[Isabelle]

What Les said!
Sounds like you work in the same place as I do!

[Les]

try this place for wire... they seem fairly priced, and i have used them myself before for other stuff... www.wires.co.uk

the wire is on this page here....

http://www.wires.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwires%2eco%2euk%2f&WD=silver%20fine&PN=si_bare%2ehtml%23aSI1250_2d001#aSI1250_2d001

[Clare Scott]

Thankyou thankyou...

Isabelle...I`m a VN. Are you a vetty type too?!

[Shirley]

It's worth having a play with silver frit too.

[Fired Silver]

Hi

I've used wires.co.uk before and they've always been good and reasonably priced.

Silver frit looks lovely on beads - must try it soon!

Rebecca

[Clare Scott]

Never heard of silver frit. Have I been in a cave?

Where is it to be found?

Pics...I want to see some pics!

C

[Fired Silver]

There was a topic on here somewhere - can't remember where, I think it was in "Other Competitions" Petra from Silver Clay gave away some fine silver frit and people who got it put their piccies up!

I'm a metal clay artist, just getting into lampwork so my beads aren't good enough to use fine silver yet!!  Just like drooling over everyone else's stuff!

[Shirley]

I got some from Petra - it's quite useful stuff and a little goes a long way. I think her website is silverclay.co.uk.

[Buzzybead]

Thankyou thankyou...

Isabelle...I`m a VN. Are you a vetty type too?!

Our Issy is a superdooper lemon squeezy VN (and a pretty good lampworker too )

[Isabelle]

LOL!! I'm a TSF - a tormentor of small furries!!

[Clare Scott]

Haha! I`m a locum...very part time due to my new obsession!!
Beats cleaning out kennels and all the other yucky stuff I trained so hard for!!

[Buzzybead]

Do you do pussy cats? I mean make pussy cat faces? I love their plumptiuosness: oh yeah!

[Isabelle]

yeah, I'm part-time too - but in a really small branch surgery of a larger practice - just me and a vet- so I'm receptionist, nurse, cleaner- everything except the vet!!!
Pussy cat faces sounds like fun!! Like my avatar - that's Tiggy, my oldest.There are 3 others!