Brass watch movement pendant & wire ramblings!

Brass.

It looks great and it's pretty popular however, I don't tend to work with very often as I find it really hard to use!

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For those that don't know, most wire comes in two or three hardnesses(eseses) Usually Dead Soft and Half Hard.

Now the dead soft stuff is my favourite to work with, it bends easily as it's surprise surprise, dead soft. its great for adding to designs part way through as it won't kink up the other wires when you push it into place.

The other common wire is half-hard. Half hard is meant to be good for structural work and is really useful when you need tension on a piece, to hold a stone in place for instance. The difficulty with this stuff is it's quite springy so it doesn't quite stay where you want it to, you kind of have to overbend it and let it spring back in the hope it will be how you want it. I tend to avoid using it as it winds me up!

This leads me onto the brass. Up until recently i'd only ever had half hard brass wire which i gave up trying to work as it wasn't doing as I wanted and i got very frustrated! Whilst looking for something else online i found a seller advertising dead soft brass wire. I bought a selection of gauges and got all excited that I could finally do some designs in brass.

Sadly the reality is it isnt a great deal better than the half hard stuff. It's definitely easier to use but this piece still caused me a lot of headache and hasn't made me want to work with it again!
It's a shame as its a beautiful metal and as i mentioned at the start its a popular choice for jewellery customers.
Anyway I will stop rambling and leave you with some photos.

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