Prongs wear over time or can break from stress. They can fail from exposure to chlorine and bromine, especially white gold prongs. Household products such as laundry soap, common household bleaches & cleaning agents are harmful to gold. Swimming pools and hot tubs cause even more damage because they corrode gold metal, especially when heat is added. Factors to be considered in the care of gold, are the type of white gold, the amount of chemicals, the temperature and the length of exposure. Bromines change color of gold to a bronze hue, while simultaneously making it brittle.

It is recommended that you do not wear your jewelry in hot tubs or swimming pools, and that you remove your rings when working with cleaning products and that you not clean your rings with chlorine products. Get your ring prongs and pendant bails checked regularly by a qualified jeweler.

Neck chains and bracelets shouldn’t be worn while sleeping or showering. Soap scum collects on jewelry and exposes it to chlorine, which dulls and destroys the metal. Jewelry can be stressed, crimped and break while sleeping with it on. Herringbone chain jewelry is especially prone to kinking.

Never remove jewelry when away from home. More jewelry is lost when people take it off to wash their hands or use hand lotion. Never take jewelry off in a car. It tends to fall and is forgotten or is lost within the car. The best way to apply hand lotion when away from home, is to just avoid the area where rings and jewelry make contact with the skin.

In summery:

Generally gold jewelry should last virtually forever but thoughtless, abusive treatment can diminish its beauty, and its value. To safeguard your gold from harm follow a few simple rules:

1. Gold’s worst enemy is chlorine. Repeated exposure weakens its structure and can lead to breakage. Don’t swim in pools with chlorine. Don’t wear jewelry when pouring chlorine in the wash. Don’t wear jewelry in a Jacuzzi.

2. Protect gold jewelry by keeping it safe and wrapped in a soft cloth when not wearing it.

3. Clean gold jewelry in an ultrasonic cleaner using a recommended cleaning solution.

4. Dry and polish jewelry with a chamois or soft cloth after cleaning and rinsing.

5. Keep gold jewelry free from dust, moisture, perspiration and makeup.

6. Always inspect your gold jewelry for weakness or damage and bring it to a professional jeweler for immediate repair or restoration.

Solder comes in different types of alloys such as silver solder and gold solder, and normally, you’d match the solder to the metal. For example, if you were soldering with silver, you’d use silver solder so that you wouldn’t see the solder after you finished soldering. It would just blend right into the other metal and sort of become invisible.

Therefore, the practice of “soldering” is using solder to join two pieces of metal. You heat the solder with a torch to the correct temperature (which varies depending on the type of metal), and the solder melts and flows between the two pieces of metal, thus bonding them together.

Due to the alloys in the solder, the melting point of the solder will have a lower melting point than the metal you are soldering. This allows the solder to melt sooner than the metal, which is obviously critical to the soldering process.

While learning to soldering is not really all that more difficult than wrapping a bead with wire, understanding what the metal is doing can be just as important to understanding the step by step process of learning how to solder.

Step-By-Step Soldering

When soldering silver, or any metal for that matter, there are a few variables depending on what is being soldered, but, for the most part, you follow the same series of steps each time you solder metal. Below is the basic step-by-step process:

First, you need to set up a clear safe area to solder. This will normally require a large ceramic tile, a fire brick, and an overhead lamp. The fire brick is put on top of the tile and will safely absorb the heat from the torch flame. Once you have an area set, next you should make sure that whatever you are soldering together fits well. This often requires careful filing to ensure there is a tight fit. Next, it’s important that whatever is being soldering is clean and free from grease and oils that has been transmitted to the metal from your hands. So, each piece that is to be soldered should be put into a pickle for a few minutes. Once the pieces to solder are cleaned and arranged on the brick, it’s time to cut your solder. Just as the metal should be clean, so should the solder. Though you don’t need to pickle it, you want to make sure you don’t handle it a lot. Either use wire cutters or very sharp scissors to cut tiny pieces of solder. Set them aside on your tile for later. Now it’s time to flux. The flux is applied to the area to be soldered using a thin paint brush. Then the solder is placed on the metal. Tweezers work well for placing the tiny pieces of solder onto the metal. When placing solder on the metal, it should be positioned between the areas that will best join the metal. Once the metal had the soldered place, it’s time to start up your torch. First, all the metal should be heated so that the temperature for soldering is reached at the same time. The solder will follow your heat, so try not to point the flame right at the solder. Instead, you want the flame to draw the solder through the joint being connected. Continue to keep the flame on until you will see the solder run, then remove the flame immediately. Using tweezers or pliers, pick up the hot metal and drop into a jar of water. If you need to solder the piece again, you’ll need to repeat these steps starting with step number 3.

Goldsmiths work with metals and safety issues can arise. It is crucial to know that the body reacts to metals, metallic dust, salts and oxides and there are ways to protect against adverse effects.

Jewelers work with all types of metals and alloys, and again, safety must be an intrinsic concern in the workplace. When turning gold, copper, silver, zinc, iron, steel, platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, titanium, niobium and aluminum into beautiful objects, the golden rule of safety is primary.

Dangerous metals that shouldn’t be allowed in the modern day workshop, but still are, include: nickel, lead, mercury, chromium, selenium, cadmium, arsenic, antimony, manganese and beryllium. Additional precautions must be taken if these highly toxic metals are in your workplace.

Jewelers work both with pure metals and with alloys, which are a combination of more than one metal. For instance, brass is an alloy of 65% copper and 35% zinc.

Metallic compounds which are often salts or oxides, are another component that a jeweler comes in constant contact with. Salts and oxides are found in patinas, cleaning solutions, pickling solutions, and enamels. These compounds are also by-products of heating or chemical reactions that occur on a daily basis in the course of running a jewelry business.

Heating metals in soldering, annealing or melting, accelerates chemical and physical reactions that are different from room temperature reactions.

It’s important to note that not all metals are harmful to the human body. Our bodies contain small amounts of trace metals. These metals have safe concentration levels that should not be exceeded nor diminished.

Science is fascinating in that exposure to multiple metals can result in interactions between them. It’s similar to the adverse effects of combining certain pharmaceutical drugs or drinking alcohol and taking medications.

When cadmium and zinc are combined, the body loses calcium and this can have a deleterious effect upon the nervous system.

Metal toxicity among jewelers can be a professional hazard because many jewelers smoke, eat and drink where toxic metals are used. Metals are tricky and can leach important chemicals from the body by interfering with absorption. Selenium, an important element required by the body, can be blocked when workers use antimony, aluminum, palladium, gold and silver.

Metals have the tendency to build up in the body after years of exposure. Build-up is hazardous to workers with pre-existing medical conditions and the dire results can take a lifetime of metal proximity to reveal themselves.

Metal exposure comes through the skin, or by breathing or ingesting metallic oxides, salts and dust. Metallic fumes, which result from heating metals at high temperatures, can cause serious damage and metal fume fever is a real hazard with molten metals. Zinc, copper, magnesium, aluminum, copper, antimony, cadmium, iron and silver can all cause metal fume fever.

Liver damage can occur when working with antimony, arsine, beryllium, bismuth, cadmium, manganese, selenium, and indium. Indium can also damage the kidneys and irritate and permanently damage the lungs. Pregnant women should not work around these metals because the fetus can be affected.

People can become allergic to their jewelry. Cosmetics also effect the reactions of metals upon the skin. Studies have been done with metal-intolerant patient whereby they were patch-tested with nickel sulfate and wore metal washers as a neckpiece. Results showed that 63% reacted to nickel sulfate patch test, 50% reacted to the nickel washer, 8% to the nickel-palladium washer, 13% to the copper washer, 7% to the brass washer, 4% to the bronze or palladium washers, 2% to gold and none to iron.

It appears that iron might be the best material for jewelry in terms of metallic tolerance, but fashion hasn’t taken this knowledge to the marketplace, as yet.

The most dangerous metals, alloys and salts contain cadmium, nickel, chromium, antimony, arsenic, and beryllium.

1. Have a well-lit area, using multiple, non-glare sources.

2. Have the workspace planned out for efficient, safe and organized production.

3. Make sure your equipment is checked and maintained on a daily basis.

4. Make sure your workspace is electrically sound and modernized because an electrical fire will be a disaster. Only use licensed electricians, no handymen, friends or other non-licensed professionals. If you have any questions as to the safety of electrical outlets or wattages, call an inspector from your local fire department.

5. Keep a low-dust atmosphere and have excellent ventilation.

6. Avoid all procedures involving solvents, whenever possible. Have ventilation at every workstation in the investing or melting areas. Use work clothing, and clean it frequently. Use personal safety equipment such as earmuffs, shoe covers to protect against molten metal splashes, and safety goggles.

7. Install ergonomically sound work stations so that workers are not physically stressed or hurt.

8. Make safety a habit and then it won’t seem like a job.

9. Substitute the least hazardous procedure when you have a choice.

10. Learn from mistakes or close calls. When an accident occurs, it needs to be recorded in an accident book and discussed and remedied, in order to avoid repetition.

11. The most hazardous dust particles are completely invisible and are fibrous or jagged, and lodge themselves between the air sacs in human lungs. These particles are responsible for emphysema, lung cancer and death, when workers are unprotected. Asbestos, cotton and silica are the worst culprits of doom.

12. The most effective ventilation is localized, which means utilizing a device that sucks out the bad air. It is best to have a device, slot or tube close to the working area that is the source of the pollution that is generating the dust, mist or fumes. The bad fumes will be sucked away as they are produced and thus, removed entirely from the workshop.

13. Should you be using a respirator, make sure it fits your face and is the proper type for the dusts, chemicals and fumes you are protecting yourself against.

14. Eye protection in the workshop usually consists of using safety glasses and/or a face shield. Polycarbonate glasses are good. Goggles protect the eyes from sharp objects, flying chunks, dust, chemicals, fumes, liquids and hot metal splashes.

Pickling, as it pertains to the jewelry industry, is a treatment of metallic surfaces in order to remove impurities, stains, rust or scale with a solution called pickle liquor, containing strong mineral acids, before subsequent processing, such as extrusion, rolling, painting, galvanizing or plating with tin or chromium. The two acids commonly used are hydrochloric acid and sulphuric acid. Pickling liquid may be a combination of acids and may also contain nitric or hydrofluoric acids.

A file’s teeth can range from rough, coarse and intermediate to second-cut, smooth and dead smooth. A single-cut or mill file has one set of parallel teeth, while a cross-cut or double-cut file has a second set at an angle to the first. In Swiss-pattern files the teeth are cut at a shallower angle, and are graded by number, with a number 1 file being coarser than a number 2, etc..

Most files have teeth on all faces, but some specialty flat files have teeth only on the face or only on the edge, so that the the user can come right up to another edge without damaging the finish on it.

Dreadnought (curved teeth) and millenicut (straight teeth) both have heavily undercut, sharp but coarse teeth. Both can be used for rapidly removing large quantities of material from thick aluminum alloy, copper or brass. Today, the millenicut and dreadnought have found a new use in removing plastic filler materials such as two-part epoxies or styrenes such as those commonly used in automobile body repairs.

Files have forward-facing cutting teeth, and cuts most effectively when pushed over the workpiece. Drawfiling involves laying the file sideways on the work, and carefully pushing and pulling it across the work. This catches the teeth of the file sideways instead of head on, and a very fine shaving action is produced. There are also varying strokes that produce a combination of the straight ahead stroke and the drawfiling stroke, and very fine work can be attained in this fashion. Using a combination of strokes, and progressively finer files, a skilled operator can attain a surface that is perfectly flat and near mirror finish. The grooves in a file may became clogged during use, causing the file to lose its cutting ability. A file card can be used to clean the file.

Files should always be used with a handle, otherwise the naked tang can injure the operator.

Hand Engraving

Hand engraving is done with a tool called a graver–think of it as a miniature chisel. The sharp, chisel ends of gravers are formed into different shapes that offer different looks for the text. Multiple shapes let engravers choose the best tool for the type of lettering you request.

Many experienced hand engravers are artisans who can put your inscription into any style of text you desire. Some engravers can even produce intricate symbols.

Hand engravers sometimes prefer to work with gold rings, rather than platinum, since the softer gold has more “give” under the engraving tool. On the other hand, platinum doesn’t wear away as easily as gold, so once it’s there an inscription in platinum is usually more durable.

Machine Engraving

Machine engraving is accomplished with different types of power-driven engravers that work off of templates or computer aided designs. The jewelry is inserted in the machine and when turned on the machine forms the letters. Machine engravers burrow into or spread the metal apart to create letters. Some machine engravers offer only block lettering, so be sure to ask about available options.

The bright, jewel-like colors have made enamel a favored choice for designers of jewelry, such as ancient beads, the fantastic eggs of Peter Carl Fabergé, enameled copper boxes of Battersea enamellers, and artists such as George Stubbs and other painters of portrait miniatures. Enameling was also a favorite technique of the Art Nouveau jewelers.

Little is known about the origin of enameling. The earliest known enameled artifacts, found around the Mediterranean, date from the sixth century BC. These enameled jewelry pieces and small figurines with enamel fused to gold backing probably came from Greece.

The Egyptians had cemented inlaid bits of colored glasses in metal filigree and clay long before this. The Mediterranean enamellists adapted this. They used metal wires or strips attached to the metal backing to create separate areas, packed powdered glass into the cells, and fuse it by heating. This was the primary enameling technique in that region for the next ten centuries.

The Celtic tribes that spread across Europe had established themselves in the British Isles by about 400 BC. They decorate their weapons and other objects with enamels. Instead of attaching wire strips to the metal backing, the Celts gouged out cells or cast them in the metal backing to contain the enamel. Then they poured molten glass, melted separately, into them. They probably developed these techniques independently of the Mediterranean enamelists.

Celtic enamelwork was the major influence on European enameling until the third century AD. Items from their workshops have been found all over northern Europe. Fine Celtic enameled pieces from the Middle Ages found in Ireland reveal an advanced state of this art there.

The Angles and Saxons who invaded Britain were making enameled clasps, buttons, belts, and brooches by the sixth century AD. Modern excavation of the Sutton Hoo burial ship treasure in Southern England yielded a solid gold pursemount decorated with enameled falcons, ducks and armored warriors. It also had garnet gems set in it.

Today, enamels are not as rare as gemstones, but the skill to create fine enamelwork is. Technical advances in materials and tools have made this art more attractive to today’s jewelry artisans. They create beautiful pieces that typically reach a small local market. These enameled products intrigue the senses and add an extra touch of beauty to their underlying jewelry.

Doming is performed by using a curved hammer or mallet molding sheet metal into an indentation. The exact nature of the tools used varys greatly depending on the scale and nature of the work. A Steel Doming Block Fine work typically requires a small doming punch and a block. Larger work may involve a special sinking hammer and stump. The forming indentation does not need to be a permanent substance. Sandbags or lead blocks can also be used as a mold for doming.

Doming may be done when the metal is cold or hot. If a piece is extensively worked cold, it will work harden and require annealing to prevent cracking.

Swaging is a metal-forming technique in which the metal is deformed to its final shape using high pressures, either by pressing or hammering, or by forcing through a die. Swaging differs from forging in that the swaged metal is cold worked, and the output of the swaging operation is usually the finished shape.

A swage block is a block of usually made of steel used in metalwork, with various sized holes in its face and usually with forms on the sides.

The through holes are of various shapes and sizes and are used to hold the end of a piece of metal for shaping, usually a bending operation. Shapes such as the curve and the hexagon can also be fashioned using a swaging block.

A: The most common cause of water marks is due to inadequate mixing time of an investment slurry. If the water and powder are not properly incorporated by mixing for precisely four minutes the result is “free water” separating from the mixture and running on or around the wax or plastic pattern, leaving subsequent water marks on the burned out mold.

Q: I have mixed the investment slurry for precisely four minutes and I am still getting watermarks. What is the cause of this?

A: There are two known reasons that this problem continues, even after proper mixing. The water is being driven out of the mixture by the force of sedimentation due to the long gloss-off. This occurs due to too cold of a water temperature in the mixture or a water quality of two high or low of a pH. Solutions to these two occurrences are:

 If the problem persists after proper mixing times, one should time the gloss-off. If the gloss off exceeds twelve minutes, it is necessary to heat the water used in the mix to speed the gloss-off. Water temperatures between 76°F and 78°F commonly give excellent results for this problem. Distilled or de-ionized waters are preferable over tap water, due to the neutral pH of these treated waters. When using tap water, it should be left to sit for no less than thirty minutes to allow the chlorine and other chemical treatments to dissipate.

Q: Why does it take so long for platinum investments to set-up?

A: Platinum investments are generally 98% silica sand, with the remaining percentage ingredient giving the material strength by sintering the investment in the burnout process. A high percentage of sand, with no chemical binders produces a sedimentary investment. Therefore, the investment particles have to slowly settle by gravitational force, to the bottom of the flask, slowly displacing the water content of the mixture. Due to the size of the particles this process usually requires 12 to 15 hours to complete.