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A jewelry wire gauge is a measure of the wire gauge or diameter of wire used in jewelry making. Wire is defined today as a single, usually cylindrical, elongated strand of drawn metal. However, when wire was first invented over 2,000 years BC, it was made from gold nuggets pounded into flat sheets, which were then cut into strips. The strips were twisted and then rolled into the round shape we call wire. This early wire, which was used in making jewelry, can be distinguished from modern wire by the spiral line along the wire created by the edges of the sheet. Modern wire is manufactured in a different process that was discovered in Ancient Rome. In this process, a solid metal cylinder is pulled through a draw plate with holes of a defined size. Thinner sizes of wire are made by pulling wire through successively smaller holes in the draw plate until the desired size is reached. When wire was first invented, its use was limited to making jewelry. Today, wire is used extensively in many applications including fencing, the electronics industry, electrical distribution, and the making of wire wrapped jewelry. ==Wire hardness== All metals have a property called hardness, which is the property of the metal that resists bending. Soft metals are pliable and easy to bend while hard metals are stiff and hard to bend. The hardness of metals can be changed by heat-treating the metal in a process called annealing or by bending the wire in a process called ''work hardening''. Since it is made of metal, wire has this same hardness property. Most modern manufacturers of jewelry wire make the wire with a defined hardness, generally a hardness of 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4. Historically, these numbers were associated with the number of times that the wire was pulled through a draw plate, becoming harder or stiffer each time it was drawn through the drawplate. A hardness of 0 meant that the wire had been drawn through only once and was as soft and as pliable as possible. A hardness of 4 meant that the wire had been drawn through five or more times and the wire was as stiff and as hard as possible. Today, the designations 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 no longer correlate to the number of times that the wire has been drawn through a drawplate because now the hardness of a wire can be changed by heat-treating it. 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. It can be easily bent and is excellent for making rounded shapes such as spirals. It is also excellent for wrapping wire around beads to make them look as though they are encased. The disadvantage of using soft wire is that the finished piece can be bent out of shape if not properly handled. 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. 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. Hard wire is very stiff and tends to spring back after being bent. This can make it harder to work with when using a jig. Hard wire will not make a spiral. The advantage to hard wire is that components made out of hard wire, while difficult to make, are very permanent. As in many things, no single wire is perfect for all applications. Soft wire is easy to bend and shape, but the finished product may be bent out of shape if squeezed. Hard wire is difficult to bend but makes permanent shapes. Half-hard wire is a compromise between the two. The ideal wire will be easy to bend until in its final shape but then very stiff, but since this wire does not yet exist, when making wire wrapped jewelry, the artist or crafts person may harden the wire as one step in making the jewelry. Hardening the wire can be accomplished by hammering or by manipulating the wire in a process called ''work hardening''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jewelry wire gauge」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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