Using 14kt Gold Wire
Monday March 6, 2006
Ever thinking about using the real thing? I mean using real gold wire versus gold-filled for your wire jewelry designs. We have a forum discussion going on about this right now: 14k gold wire (26-28 guage)?.
Comments
I recently took up the new hobby of gem/stone collecting by bidding on some stuff on EBay. Yes, I am aware that some of them are “B” quality, however, I am having a lot of fun buying them cheap and displaying my winnings in my little acrylic case (also purchased on EBay)! Now I’ve decided to try wrapping some of the stones with wire and making pendants out of them. I really love the natural type stones so perfection in wire wrapping is not necessary, I like the uniqueness of just wrapping it as my hand moves! So…. as for your discussion of true solid gold wire vs. gold filled, I would have to say if you are a beginner you should DEFINITELY use gold filled, as in less than 24 hrs. I already have a pile of twisted wire I gave up on, and not sure if it will be usable in the future! Once a self-made “jewelry maker/hobbyist” has perfected the manipulation of wrapping (or you just simply have more money than you know what to do with), only then would I suggest graduating to more expensive wire. I will wear these items myself until someone tells me how wonderful it looks, THEN I might try my hand at real gold! It’s a differnce of about $2.00 per inch vs. 14 cents so only the individual can decide how much to gamble with. The appearance is the same, only you will know the difference unless you are trying to make a living at selling the items on EBay, in which case you’ll have to tell the truth.
I’ve been seriously considering using 14k gold recently… I feel like my skills as a jewelry artist have progressed such that I can make truly professional looking jewelry with “the real stuff”. The only problem is that I came to this conclusion when gold prices are at an all-time high. So despite the fact that I can now reasonably sell the jewelry I make and there is interest in my work, I’ll probably only use 14k solid gold upon request, for a commission piece.
I also have the concern that since I’m primarily a wire jewelry artist, that there is invariably some waste wire created with any piece I make and that’s a little more intimidating when using more expensive materials. On the other hand, there are many places that will buy scrap wire, like gsgold.com. So working with 14k gold is a little less worrisome when you know you can scrap the whole thing and start over and still sell the scrap and get more wire… No, you don’t get 100% of your money back that way – but you can get a fairly good percentage, even still…
But since there is a hefty initial investment in having enough wire to work with (In order for me to get 50 feet of the gauge I normally work with – it costs over $2700.00!), I know I will have to wait a while before I can start working with 14k solid gold… I’d love to eventually work with it and it would be really cool to use 14k gold for jewelry that I wear… but until I have *way* more expendable income than I have now, that will have to wait… I also wonder if I should learn other jewelry making techniques or take bench jeweler classes and maybe do lost wax, as opposed to wire wrapping…