[TheForge] silver wire questions

[terry l. ridder]

hello;

in going through a box of misc. items in the shop i found two spools of
labeled jeweler wire silver b&s 30 1000 ft each. date on the label is
4-29-80. 22 year old silver wire looks like new to me.

i am assuming the b&s 30 is the brown & sharpe wire gauge.
there is also a .925 ss marking on the labels, i have no clue what that
would stand for.

i cut 4 six inch pieces and braided them in a 4 wire braid.

   a   b

   c   d

a goes to d
d goes to a
b goes to c
c goes to b
repeat

granted the braid is small but sparkles very nicely.

my questions are:

if i were to make 4 strand silver 'rope' ( per dave brown's excellent
instructions ) and then silver crosses out of this wire:

how do i hardend it since even braiding it did not seem to do much
toward hardending it? i mean this wire is soft.

what should the care of the silver be to avoid tarnishing?

my only past experience with silver was helping my daughter melt it for
casting rings and other small jewelery items. ( i melted it for her she
did the rest. )

how would i determine the purity of the silver?
is it alloyed with anything?
if it is alloyed with what?

-- 
Terry L. Ridder ><>