Recycling Your Scrap - Rolling Wire
Learn how to use your rolling mill to turn leftover wire into longer reuseable lengths!
About the Tutorial
We've all had left over pieces of chunky wire - too short to make into a ring or bangle but there's so much potential left in them!
One of my favorite things to do with these leftover pieces is to turn them into longer, thinner and so far more easy to reuse lengths of wire using my rolling mill. It is such a satisfying job and the new wire is perfect for making stacking rings and much more!
This free tutorial will teach you all the tips you need to recycle your leftovers into beautiful new wire, including the importance of annealing and when to do it. We will also cover what to do if you accidentally overtighten your rollers whilst rolling the wire.
This video class is just one in a growing collection of free tutorials. You can enrol on each one individually or enrol on the whole bundle so that you don't miss out on new classes!
Tools and Materials
The only materials that you will need for this tutorial are short lengths of thick wire left over from other projects - the shape of the wire doesn't matter as the rolling mill will reshape it to the profile of your wire rollers. In the video I recycled very short lengths of 3mm square wire. The longest piece was approximately 26mm long and was turned into over 100mm of approximately 1.5mm square wire - perfect for a couple of stacking rings!
You will also need:
* a rolling mill with wire rollers
* equipment to anneal the silver (blow torch, soldering block, reverse-action tweezers, brass tweezers, quench pot, pickle pot, black sharpie, safety glasses)
* vernier gauge to measure the wire's thickness - useful but not essential
Course Curriculum
Joanne Tinley
Tutor and Founder of The Jeweller's Bench
The Jeweller's Bench is run by Joanne Tinley. She has been making her own jewellery for as long as she can remember and left her first career as a school teacher to set up business as a
jewellery designer and tutor 15 years ago.
She isself-taught and like many people started with wire and beads. Learning how to solder, however, opened up a whole new world of jewellery making, one that she is keen to share!