How to Buy Sheet Silver

Sterling silver for art projects, jewelry making and crafts comes in wire, tubing, and sheets. Buy sheet silver to cut, solder, hammer, and bend sterling silver into your design shapes for rings, bracelets, pendants, jewelry findings, and other silver jewelry parts.

Sterling silver is also called .925 silver or .925 sterling silver. The .925 comes from the fact that sterling silver is an alloy mixed with other metals. .925, or 92.5%, is the minimum proportion of pure silver that must be included in the blend. The alloy is created to harden natural silver to make it durable and less prone to tarnish.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Copper sheet sampler
• Jewelry supply store that sells sheet silver
• Credit card
• Business license

1. Keep tabs on the precious metal markets to check on the price of silver per ounce. By watching the metal markets over the course of several days or even weeks, you can catch trends when they happen. The price of silver fluctuates daily.

2. Place a small order for your first order, so you can be sure the sheet silver is the gauge you really want. When you buy sterling silver sheet, it is usually not returnable. Sterling silver sheet is sold in standard 6" widths though some places will custom cut sheet silver for you from 1" to up to a yard. It is also sold by ounces and by gauge (thickness). The lower the gauge, the thicker the silver sheet. The higher gauges are quite thin and flexible.

3. Buy a cheap copper sheet pack or sampler pack to figure out which gauge will work for you and to practice working the metal. I highly recommend buying this less expensive metal sheet first and practicing with it instead of the more expensive precious metal sheet. Then order sterling silver sheet.

4. Buy sheet silver online at the jewelry supply store, Santa Fe Jeweler's Supply. This store has been around for several years and is used by many professional jewelers.
   
   Also try JewelrySupply.com or SilverSupplies.com, or even eBay. Hoover and Strong is also reputed to sell sheet silver.
   
   Or buy silver sheet from Rio Grande, whose catalog is immense and who is also very popular among jewelers, art students and professional jewelry makers. You can order the catalog online and the price of the catalog is deducted from your first order. Rio Grande requires that you are a licensed professional or a student.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't forget - practice first on cheaper sheet metal to avoid wasting precious silver.
• You may need to provide your business license number to the supplier of sheet silver.

Resources

• Santa Fe Jeweler's Supply for silver sheet
• Check the metal markets here
• inexpensive sampler copper sheet pack
• Rio Grande site
• More jewelry making and jewelry selling tips