Metals like silver and gold can be purchased for jewelry making as wire. Wire comes in different sizes, and the size of the wire is called its gauge.

There are different systems, so I’m just going to talk about the gauge system commonly used by U.S. jewelry supply companies, since that is the system I’m familiar with.

The bigger the gauge number, the thinner the wire. 14g (g = gauge) is thick, sturdy wire. 24g is thin, and 30g is so thin it’s almost hair-like. The thickness of wire normally used for earwires is usually between 22g to 20g. Really small gauge numbers, like 3g, are more like dowels than wire.

Obviously, a variety of gauges of wire can be useful for different aspects of jewelry making. I use very thin wire if I’m wrapping around a frame of some sort, and I use much thicker wire to form the frames of my wire pendants. 20g is my favorite for earrings. If I’m making headpins with wire, the gauge I use is usually the thickest gauge that will fit through the hole of the beads I’m using in my design.