Anyone Tried Colored Jewelry Making Wire

[FlyBum]

Today one of my fly tying friends on Facebook (yes I belong to facebook) posted that he found a new source for inexpensive fly tying wire its actually colored wire that is used in jewelry making. It comes in a huge amount of different gauges and colors.

The two different brands he mentioned were Parawire and Artistic wire. This stuff is sold at a lot of craft stores like Joann's.

Have any of you used it this type of wire?

Does anyone here know what actual gauge match those available from Ultra wire, because this jewelry making wire comes in regular wire gauge sizes all the way down to 32?

I thing the wire spools are larger also, does any one actually how many yards come on a spool of Ultra Wire?

 

[ctious]

yup... i have been for years... works great... cant beat the price... there are a lot of good things to be found in craft stores... way cheaper than fly shops..

 

[FlyBum]

So can you tell me which wire gauges coincide with the small, brassie, and medium designations that Ultra wire uses.

 

[ctious]

So can you tell me which wire gauges coincide with the small, brassie, and medium designations that Ultra wire uses.

the 18, 22(or 24 cant remember) seem to work the best.. but if you want to go real small i think they make a 26... for the price buy a few sizes... always nice to have around them you want to experiment...

the 32 is super fine.... that could be used for a rib... but i find it too thin to do much with...

 

[FlyBum]

the 18, 22(or 24 cant remember) seem to work the best.. but if you want to go real small i think they make a 26... for the price buy a few sizes... always nice to have around them you want to experiment...

the 32 is super fine.... that could be used for a rib... but i find it too thin to do much with...

Thank you. I the mean time I checked a fly tying forum and this is what I learned.

UTC size = Diameter (inches) = AWG for enameled wire
Extra small = .004 = 38-40
Small = .007 = 34
Brassie = .009 = 32
Medium = .014 = 28
Large = .017 = 26

 

[unclepaul]

You might try magnet wire used in transformers chokes, coils etc. It's dirt cheap-to-free and pre-enameled so it takes paint and markers very well. My local electronics surplus store (Anchor in Santa Clara, CA) has $1.00 packages of it in AWG sizes from 36 to 20 with enough to last me a lifetime! While you're there, take a look at their spagetti tubing and heat shrink for fly tying uses. Avoid the teflon stuff as it takes neither paint nor glue. If you have no local source, just find an older broken radio, stereo, etc. After getting to its guts and gizzerds, look for tiny circuit board mounted transformers. Pried open they yield what sooms to be miles of tiny magnet wire. Thr only drawback is you seldom see it in and any colors but shades of copper, orange, and red. I LOOOOOOVE those permanent markers!

 

[fredaevans]

yup... i have been for years... works great... cant beat the price... there are a lot of good things to be found in craft stores... way cheaper than fly shops..

+1 to Ctious' comment. Wife 2.0 got interested in making bead jewelry 15 (+/-) years back and dove in with both feet. All I could do was roll my eyes, but if it kept her 'amused' why not.

Anyway, she'd hit these bead stores in Ashland, Oregon (there were at least three at the time) and drag these bags of this's and that's home. Had to do a 'Hummmm?' Made a trip with her one day and ended up spending more than she did.

Did get more than the odd look when I pulled out a small box of mixed fish hooks (sizing thing) and I'm being 'observed' trying to put one of this or that around the bend. Bye the Bye, some of those beads can be DAMNED EXPENSIVE~

fae