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Tongue piercing is most popularly done with straight barbell. 14 Ga is the most common gauge used for tongue ring piercing. In order to give room to the swelling, the initial length of the pierced barbell should be at least 3/4″. Once the tongue piercing has been healed, it can be replaced to a shorter barbell of 9/16″, or 14 mm, which is the most common size of tongue rings. It is recommended to wear a shorter barbell after the tongue piercing is healed.

Barbell tongue ring style 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 change the jewelry. Usually, there are only right-handed barbell threads.

body jewelry consists of approximately 5 different types of barbells. The internally threaded barbells are slightly more costly than outer threaded barbells as there will be extra machining and labor involved. At the time of piercing of the tongue rings, the internally threaded barbells cause less damage or irritation, so it is considered superior to externally threaded barbells. The bead in an internal threaded barbell has a receiving tube machine into it with a threaded post extending from the center, which mates with the threaded receiving tube on the bar.

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 receiving threads to be attached.

Curved barbells are also known as a navel curve and are named because of their curvature. It is mechanically identical to straight barbells instead of that they are curved. Curvature on a curved barbell tongue rings 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 body jewelry. A variations on this design is a J-bar, a slightly curved barbell, sometimes referred to as a banana bell or banana barbell, with a 90 degree bend near one end, used in vertical navel piercings to position the decorative end of the body jewelry more appropriately. They can be either internally threaded or externally
threaded.
Circular barbell tongue rings, also known as horseshoe barbell tongue rings are used in many kinds of piercings. They are named so due to their shape.

In all surface piercings, surface bars are used. In order to use these barbell tongue rings 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 interfere with the healing is minimized.