English Music Wire Gauge. Measurements Converter

American Wire Gauge is a standard used in the United States since 1857 for copper, aluminium, gold, silver, etc. It is also known as Brown & Sharpe wire gauge. The more is the gauge number, the smaller is the wire diameter. Wires thicker than gauge 0 are denoted as 00 (or 2/0), 000 (or 3/0), etc.

Washburn & Moen Steel Wire Gauge is used in the United States for steel. It is also known as US Steel Wire or Roebling Gauge.

British Standard Wire Gauge is no longer popular, but is still used for measuring guitar strings. It is also known as Imperial Wire Gauge or British Standard Gauge. SVG only defines gauges from 7/0 to 50.

Birmingham Wire Gauge is now obsolete. Its sizes are not geometrically or arithmetically progressive, and, consequently, bear no definite relation to each other. B.W.G defines gauges from 5/0 to 36.

IEC 60228 is an international standard that among other things defines a set of standard wires. Wire sizes in this standard are denoted by their cross-section area expressed in mm². GOST 22483-2012 is a slightly modified version of IEC 60228 that is used in Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It adds several smaller wire sizes to the international standard.

If a section area or diameter of the wire does not match a gauge, the nearest one is used and the difference of the area is shown as a percentage.

Contrariwise to usual wire, larger music wire gauges designate thicker strings.

If a section area or diameter of the wire does not match a gauge, the nearest one is used and the difference of the area is shown as a percentage.

These gauges are for hypodermic or syringe needles, not sewing needles.

Needle Wire Gauge is derived from Birmingham Wire Gauge and has the same logic: the bigger is the gauge number, the smaller is the needle. French Catheter Scale also known as French Gauge was designed by a Parisian producer of surgical instruments Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière in 19th century. In Charrière's scale the gauge number divided by 3 gives the needle diameter in mm. That means, the bigger is the gauge number, the thicker is the needle.

Note that all needle scales define external diameter of the needle, not the internal drainage channel.

In the UK knitting needles are marked with Standard Wire Gauge numbers. Old US needles produced up to 1950s were marked with American Wire Gauge numbers. Both UK and Old US needle numbers use bigger numbers for thinner needles. Contemporary US needle size system uses the opposite approach where thinner needles have smaller numbers.

US crochet hook sizes are marked with letters from B to S. The standard is not the same among all manufacturers, so it it always advisable to check crochet hook diameter in mm.

Craft Yarn Council of America states that hook and needle manufacturers have agreed to use metric sizing (mm) on all packages along with US numbers to minimize confusion.