Straight barbell tongue rings:
Tongue piercing is most popularly done with straight barbell. 14 Ga is the most common gauge used for tongue piercing. In order to accommodate the swelling, the early length of the pierced barbell should be at least 3/4″. Once the tongue piercing has been healed, it can be changed to a shorter barbell of 9/16″(14mm) which is the most common size. It is recommended to wear a shorter barbell after the tongue piercing is healed.
Barbell fashion of body jewelry is composed of a straight bar and with a bead on each end, one or both beads unscrewable for replacement and/or replacing of the beads. Either through epoxy or welding, often one of the beads is fixed, so that only one bead is used to fix or remove the jewelry. Barbell threads are mostly right-handed.
Body jewelry consists of approximately 5 different types of barbells. The internally threaded barbells are little bit more costly than externally threaded barbells
as there will be additional machining and labor involved. At the time of piercing, the internally threaded barbells cause less damage or irritation, so it is considered superior to externally threaded barbells. An internally threaded barbell has a bead with a receiving tube machine into it which connects with a threaded post extending from the center.
The externally threaded barbells have become less common as the popularity of the internally threaded barbells has increased. It is named so because shaft of the bar has threads at both ends to permit beads with the getting threads to be attached to the tongue ring.
Curved barbells are also known as a navel curve and are named because of their curvature. It is mechanically identical to straight barbells except that they are curved. Curvature on a curved barbell can range from almost straight to circular, with some barbells actually being spiral, with the ends overlapping but departed to permit the insertion
of the jewelry. A variation on this design is a J-bar, a slightly curved barbell (sometimes referred to as a bananabell or banana barbell) with a 90 degree bend near one end, used in verticalnavel piercings to position the decorative end of the body jewelry more appropriately. They can be either internally threaded or externally threaded.
Circular barbells, also known as horseshoe barbells are used in some types of piercings. Their shape is what gives them their name.
In all surface piercings, surface bars are used. In order to use these barbells for surface piercing, they have a pair of 90 degree bends in the same direction. Because of this design the pressure that would be
caused by other body jewelry designs that participate to disallow in healing surface piercings is minimized.
