Silver filled wire is brand-new to the jewelry market! It is made up of an everlasting outer layer of sterling silver and surrounded by a copper alloy core. Silver filled wire is coated with an anti tarnish product so as to safeguard the wire against tarnishing. Silver filled wire is the high quality wire product you've been waiting for! Silver plated wire is coated with less than a hair's width of silver, and can come off easily. Silver filled wire has hundreds of times more silver than silver plate - it won't come off, even on the bench block! See the image below for a comparison:
There are many similarities between sterling silver, Argentium® and silver filled wire. Silver filled wire can be soldered, hammered, and pickled just like sterling silver. Silver filled wire is comparable to Argentium® and they have many of the same anti-tarnish qualities. All of the things you love about Argentium®, you'll love about silver filled wire - at a savings of 50% or more!
YES! Silver filled wire can be tumbled, just like sterling silver. You can use liver of sulfur to tumble your silver filled wire just like with sterling silver, and you can solder it with silver solder. Anything you could do with sterling silver, you can do with silver fill wire.