What does half hard silver mean?
Most jewelry wire that is sold now is designated dead soft, half-hard, or hard, where dead soft is wire that is manufactured with a hardness of 0, half-hard is wire manufactured with a hardness of 2, and fully hardened wire is wire with a hardness of 4. Dead soft wire is extremely soft and pliable.
Is sterling silver hard to bend?
Sterling silver is made up of 92.5% pure silver which is mixed with another metal, usually copper. The reason for this is pure silver is very soft and therefore can bend or break easily. The quantity of copper added gives the silver strength so that your sterling silver jewelry is more durable for years of wear.
What is the silver content of sterling silver?
92.5%
Instead fine silver is alloyed with copper to create sterling silver, which is 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% copper. This percentage of fine silver is why you will sometimes see sterling silver referred to as ‘925 silver’ or hallmarked with a 925 stamp.
Is Half hard wire good for jewelry making?
Half hard is good for making components that need to hold their shape (ear wires, clasps, jump rings, necklace foundations, bracelet forms, etc.). Gold-fill and silver-fill wire are generally harder than dead soft sterling silver or fine silver wire, and are often closer to half hard.
What is half hard wire good for?
Half-hard wire is excellent for making tight, angular bends, for making loops in wire, and for wrapping wire around itself. However, it is not very useful for making spirals. Finished pieces made with half-hard wire are usually more permanent than pieces made with soft wire.
What is the difference between sterling silver and .999 silver?
925 is the purity mark for sterling silver, which is traditionally 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% copper. 999 on the other hand is what’s known as fine silver, 99.9% pure silver. Sterling silver is a harder metal than fine silver.
Why is sterling silver cheap?
Sterling silver is much cheaper than costlier metals such as gold, and yet, fake imitations of sterling silver jewelry are wildly sold in the market. A jewelry is considered to be fine silver if it contains 92.5% (or more) of pure silver but pure silver is too soft to be used without another metal.
Is Pandora sterling silver?
Pandora jewelry regularly uses sterling silver: the world’s most popular silver alloy.
Is .999 silver real?
These numbers are purity marks stamped into metal, they represent the number of parts out of 1000 of pure metal in the piece. 925 is the purity mark for sterling silver, which is traditionally 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% copper. 999 on the other hand is what’s known as fine silver, 99.9% pure silver.
What does half hard mean in jewelry wire?
dead soft
Half-hard wire is slightly stiffer than dead soft wire. Half-hard wire is excellent for making tight, angular bends, for making loops in wire, and for wrapping wire around itself. Soft wire is easy to bend and shape, but the finished product may be bent out of shape if squeezed.
What’s the difference between dead soft wire and half hard wire?
As the names suggest, dead soft wire is extremely easy to bend, even with your hands. Half hard wire offers some resistance when you try to bend it. The advantage of dead soft wire is that it’s easy to shape. The advantage of half hard wire is that once you’ve shaped it, it retains its shape better.
Which is more expensive silver or Sterling Silver?
Fine silver has a higher purity percentage of silver, which will make it more expensive compared to the less pure sterling silver. Sterling silver is much more durable compared to fine silver because of the added metal alloys.