Understanding Jumprings in Jewelry Making

In my exploration and experience with jewelry-making, I've had to research things to gain an understanding of terminology and engineering of jewelry design. One thing that I encountered in my beginning days of exploration was the need for jumprings. You simply can't create a piece of jewelry without jumprings. Any time you want to connect two things together, you need one. They come in all different sizes, diameters and thicknesses. I was a little lost and overwhelmed at first. What size do I get? And, hey, what do all these numbers mean?

The majority of jumprings in my jewelry design happen to be in your 3mm to 8mm diameter range, but they go from 2mm all the way up to 20mm. One would assume that the lower the number, the smaller the ring and when dealing with diameter, you would be right.

However, with thickness, it's just the opposite. The smaller the gauge number, the thicker the ring. Generally, in my jewelry design, I'll use 22-gauge, which is very thin and flexible, all the way up to 16-gauge, which is very sturdy and thick. I like 16-gauge a lot, especially when you get into the bigger-diameter rings. It's tough and stands up to a bit of yanking and tugging and, because it's a bit thicker, you get a beautiful shine off the metal. My designs are all sterling silver, but the same would hold true for any shiny metal, I suppose. My average, most-used jumprings are 3mm/22-gauge, 5mm/18-gauge, and 8mm/16-gauge. Definitely a pattern as to the diameter versus gauge. If you want sturdy rings, the smaller the diameter number, the larger the gauge number. Thicker rings are definitely better when dealing with chainmaille designs (something I've always wanted to do, but I don't think I have the patience for it) and thinner rings are great for delicate, flowy designs.

Just my little tidbit of information to anyone out there who is going through what I went through in trying to understand the "mystery" of jumpring measurements. Have fun!