Wire gauge (silver)

[tease_designs]

I was wondering which system you use for determining the gauge of your silver wire. Do you use AWG or SWG?

Can you give me the exact thickness of (Wire, Sterling Silver, Round, 20g, Half Hard) Stock #: 64-327 in inches? For my purposes the actual thickness of the wire is an issue.

I'd hate to order something and not know which measuring system you were using.
 
Thanks
Tease

[Russ Nobbs]

Sorry, Tease, for the delay in answering this question.  We talked about it in the warehouse but I guess everyone thought someone else was going to post the answer.

The wire gauge format used for silver wire is AWG.  That stands for American Wire Gauge. We use it for Silver, copper, brass and other metal wire.  

20 gauge round should be about 0.032" in diameter. When I first read your post I thought you wanted details for half round so I wrote that too:
20 Gauge half round should be about 0.032" wide by 0.016" tall.  I'll measure some actual stock and post if it is different from the chart.

The temper or hardness does not make any difference in the size.  Since the wire is made by pulling it through draw plates (or a turks head mill) it does vary a small amount. Even varying sometimes a little on a spool. But that is usually a very small variation.

Since I started to explain about half round I'll leave that info in for anyone interested: 1/2 round wire "base" dimension, that is the flat dimension, is the same as the diameter for the same gauge in round wire. The other dimension is 1/2 of the diameter. For 20 gauge the round wire diameter is 0.032. That makes 1/2 round 0.032 x 0.016.

I hope this helps and I hope it's not too late for your needs.

[tease_designs]

Perfect!
Exactly the kind of answer I was looking for. The variance of the wire on a spool is a non issue since that variance is so small.
Thanks!

[Russ Nobbs]

I finally got a few moments to measure some of the #20 wire.

Checking the ends of several spools with a digital caliper I found it varies from .031 to.034. The wire is not perfectly round. it might read .032 with the first read but turning the caliper 90 degrees gives .034 or .031.

As you say, the variance is very small.