Wire Shape and Size – Wire Wrapping Jewelry Basics

The more you know about the wire you work with, the better your projects will be. Check out some basics below.

Wire Shapes

There are four shapes of wire: round, half-round square, square and triangular. The names are accurate to the shape that the wire is when looking at its cross-section. The most popular of these shapes is the round wire, although some artists prefer working with the other shapes more often.

Wire Sizes

Wire is sized by its thickness. Popular wire gauges are 14-guage to 26-guage. The thicker the wire the smaller the gauge number. 14-gauge wire is thicker than 16-gauge wire and 26-gauge wire is thin. In other places than the U.S. wire is sold in diameters measured in millimeters. The chart below gives you a gauge to diameter(approx) conversion. Popular wire sizes are 18-gauge to 22-gauge.

Gauge	Diameter
26	.4mm
24	.5mm
22	.6mm
20	.8mm
18	1mm
16	1.3mm
14	1.6mm

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