Making Wire

What a fun learning experience! Right up there with learning to fly.

Today I produced 29 inches of 20 gage silver wire that is indistinguishable
from what I received from Rio in the same shipment as the drawplate.

I made some serious modifications to a JSP MALTMILL and with the helpful
advice from our "national treasure" and the drawplate, I made this wire from
a piece I sawed off of an ingot.

I always sort of knew how wire was made but to see it happen with stuff that
I cobbled together was very gratifying. The fact that it took most of the
week to produce $2 worth of wire is not too important at this point but I
suspect it will never make economic sense but hobbies never do.

I used the two grooves in my mill to bring the 1/4" square down to just
under 1/8" and then moved on to the draw plate. Other than the grunting
aspect of the task, the only real problem I encountered was working the end
down to a size that would fit into the drawplate, especially on the last few
holes. I tried the belt sander, grinder, hammer and file and managed to get
there but I suspect there is trick I am missing.

It is also now obvious why one wants to get as close as possible to the
finished size with the mill.

This afternoon I added some more grooves of the shape suggested by Peter, (a
VEE with a flat) and grooves on both rollers. I worked the "nail" I cast
down to about 1/8" but it was not much easier than the first go. I suspect
it is because this time I used sterling instead of pure silver..

I made my ingots by packing casting sand into a coffee can and poking a 1/4"
rod into the sand. It worked very well but tomorrow I will try again with
fine silver.

The only thing that took the fun out of the project was the constant
anealing and this was even more of a pain with the sterling.

js

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