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Make your hand crafted jewelry from homeMaking hand crafted jewelry is one of life’s pleasures. Designing and then crafting your own creation is a great way of making a living or at least of having fun. Hand crafted jewelry is cherished and valued world-wide. The allure and enchantment of hand crafted jewelry is way beyond any kind of mass produced ornament. 
Make your own jewelry designs and hand crafted jewelry from the comfort of your home. Here you’ll find the basic smithing techniques to get you started. Each basic technique will lead you to other sections where you’ll find detailed information on its use and the variations each technique has. Hand crafted jewelry using wire is a popular and attractive way to make amazing jewelry designs. Jewelry Technique: making and shaping wireOne of the basic forms of metal used by jewelers is wire. This metal form has many plastic possibilities and applications. Wire are filaments of metal in sizes that range from a fine thread to a slender rod. It comes in various gauges and in different profile (cross-section) shapes. Suppliers and refiners have an incredible variety of wires with different forms, dimensions and conditions for you to choose. You can choose from round, square, triangular, hexagonal to star shaped cross sections just to name a few.
To make wire yourself, mount the drawplate on your vise securely and protecting the vise’s jaws with leather. The drawplates are always positioned horizontally on the vise, never in a vertical position because the drawplate will be under considerable stress during wire drawing. The drawplate is placed with the small openings towards you. Always lubricate the back openings of your drawplate with an appropriate lubricant, this will ease your drawing and protect the drawplate. Before drawing, anneal the wire very well. Then, shape one end of the wire into a tapered shape but not to a sharp point. This is tagging your wire, the procedure you should always make in order to create a point in the wire to grasp it during drawing. You can do this by filing or grinding one end. Pass your wire through the first opening that allows the tip to enter but resists the passage of the rest of the wire. Using your drawtongs, grasp the tip tightly and pull the wire all along the drawplate in one smooth and continuous movement. Your hands should be clean and dry to have a good grip on the drawtongs. The wire must pass perpendicular to the drawplate so the wire is shaped accordingly, if you nag it to the sides or up and down while drawing, the wire may be damaged. Repeat the drawing of the wire, passing each time through successively smaller openings and annealing frequently. Do not skip any openings, doing this will damage the wire and make the drawing much more difficult. Also measure the gauge of the wire often to control the wire thickness you desire. To ease your wire drawing, always anneal the wire after a few passes and lubricate each opening end of the drawplate you’ll be using and pull the wire in one swift movement. At first this activity will be hard, and your wire may get stuck in the middle of the pull. You just need more strength and a better grip of the drawtongs. After the wire has the gauge desired, you should straighten it in order to be used. To straighten a length of wire, anneal very well and place one end of the wire in the jaws of your vise and hold the other end with the drawtongs. Gently but firmly pull the wire taut. It should become firm and straight and you should see it protruding in a straight line from the jaws of your vise. To ease straightening wire, limit the length to 50”.
You can learn how to make chains and lots of hand crafted jewelry using wire. Filigree, for example, is a beautiful and traditional jewelry technique that uses wire. So, what do you want to do with your wire, what do you fancy?
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As with sheet metal, wire is best made in your workshop.
Having your handmade wire, you can cut it, fold it, spiral it, twist it, weave it, braid it, knot it, crochet it, knit it, forge it and texture it.
