Ganoksin
Posted by Administrator on Dec 27, 2005
Here is the best online resource I know of for people who want to learn about jewelry making:
What is a synthetic stone?
Posted by Administrator on Dec 20, 2005
Synthetic gemstones are becoming more and more common today. A synthetic stone simply means a stone created by humans, in a lab, rather than being naturally ocurring.
A synthetic ruby, for example, is a ruby - chemically identical and with the same crystal structure as a natural ruby - but it is grown in a lab.
Synthetic stones can be very high quality, and are usually priced much lower than natural stones, and can be an excellent, affordable alternative to natural stones - if you don’t mind that they are mandmade.
Soldering vs. Brazing
Posted by Administrator on Dec 15, 2005
In a jewelry making forum that I participate in, Creative Wire Jewelry on Delphi forums, a recent topic of discussion has been soldering, and why it is that soldering irons cannot be used for soldering silver and gold.
In the jewelry world, the process of joining two pieces of metal by using a torch to melt a bit of metal called solder is often referred to as soldering. In other professions, this method of joining metal is called brazing. Soldering usually refers to the use of soldering irons to join metals (NOT silver or gold) by melting soft solder, for applications such as circuit boards. The difference between soldering and brazing then, is pretty significant, and if this difference is not understood it can cause a lot of frustration for the beginning jewelry maker.
I don’t know why jewelers call brazing ’soldering’ when the rest of the world calls it brazing. I do know that when I learned to braze, and whenever I’ve heard jewelers discuss brazing, (online or in person) they say soldering. Occasionally it will be mentioned that soldering means brazing, but that’s rare in my experience.
So, we have in the jewelry profession a term that is confusing to outsiders, who are used to soldering meaning something done with a soldering iron. The reason a soldering iron won’t work to melt silver solder or gold solder for jewelry applications is that silver and gold solders need to get a lot hotter than soldering irons will get before they melt. A very hot flame is needed to heat the metal being joined as well as to melt the solder when working with precious metals. I use a propane torch. There are fancier torches with even hotter flames that a lot of jewelers use, but propane works, and is affordable for the beginning jeweler - you can buy propane torches at hardware stores.
I won’t get into a detailed explanation of the soldering process - my opinion is that it is very hard to learn without in-person guidance. Watching experienced jewelers work with the torch is how I learned, and my experiments on my own were unsuccessful. The point I wanted to make is just this: when a jeweler says that they soldered something, they mean using a torch, not a soldering iron. I hope a beginning jeweler somewhere reads this article and saves a little money by not purchasing a soldering iron for silverwork.
Is 14k “real gold”? And other questions about gold…
Posted by Administrator on Dec 14, 2005
The simple answer is yes. 14k gold is real gold.
So what does 14k mean? How is it different from 22k or 18k?
Without going into mathematical ratios, the lower the karat number, the lower the percentage of gold in the alloy. In english: pure gold is very soft (like pure silver) and therefore not appropriate for many jewelry applications. So, gold is alloyed with other metals to make it harder, resulting in jewelry products that are more durable and longer lasting.
24k gold is pure, unalloyed gold.
18k gold, one of the most commonly used karat golds in the US, is gold alloyed with other metals. It generally has a good yellow color, but is much tougher than 24k gold.
14k gold, another very common karat gold in the US, has a higher percentage of alloy metals than 18k - in other words, the amount of pure gold in 14k is less than the amount of pure gold in 18k. 14k tends to be tougher even than 18k - to the point that some jewelers don’t like to work with it because it isn’t as malleable.
10k and 12k gold are also sold in the US - these are less than 50% pure gold, and more than 50% alloy metals, and tend to have a paler color compared with higher karat golds.
So, are karat golds solid gold? Yes. Solid gold refers to gold, in any karat, that is that karat gold all the way through the metal. This is in contrast to gold plated metal (another metal with gold molecules bonded to its outside surface through the plating process) or gold filled metal (brass bonded to a thin sheet of karat gold, usually 12k or 14k, where the layer of karat gold weighs at least 1/20th of the total weight of the metal).
Confused? I was too, when I started researching gold colored metals to use in my jewelry making! In practical terms, karat gold is solid gold. Gold plated metal is basically gold colored, although often the gold color is so thin that it can wear off quickly and need to be replated every so often. Gold filled metal gives the look of 14k or 12k gold, at a price not much higher than sterling silver, and the gold will not wear off in contact with skin.
So, which is the best option? It completely depends on a person’s budget and the reason they are purchasing jewelry.
Gold plated jewelry is inexpensive and perfect for trendy pieces that will only be worn a few times, or jewelry that will be worn rarely, or if you have access to plating services and don’t mind doing occasional upkeep on your jewelry.
Gold filled jewelry is a good option for people who want jewelry that will last, but aren’t looking to invest karat gold prices in a piece of jewelry. Gold filled generally costs a bit more than silver, but not as much as solid karat gold, and is a better quality than gold plated metal. In my experience wearing gold filled jewelry, it looks and feels like 14k - but, from a jewelry making point of view, the fact that gold filled metal is really a two-layered metal means that heat applications, such as soldering, can melt the two different metals together - resulting in a brass/gold alloy that is mostly brass and won’t look like karat gold.
Gold filled metal is further broken down into 14/20 GF (14k is at least 1/20th the total weight), 12/20 GF (12k is at least 1/20th the total weight) and 14/10 GF (14k is at least 1/10th the total weight). I haven’t seen 12/10 GF, but it probably exists. It is good to ask which kind of gold filled metal a piece of jewelry is made from, if you are concerned with how much actual gold is in the piece.
Solid 14k, 18k and higher karat golds are luxurious. They are expensive, but are the best choice for high-end jewelry, particularly jewelry that will have stones set in it (assuming a gold-toned look is desired; for white metals, platinum and palladium are excellent alternatives to white gold).
Now, for my personal preferences. I use 14/20 GF for a lot of jewelry making applications that do not involve the use of a torch. I do a lot of wirework, and 14/20 GF is perfect for that. I also use 14k and 18k gold in my work, primarily for custom pieces and pieces that use higher-quality pearls and stones. I don’t use karat golds lower than 14k - if I want the look of gold for a lower price than 14k, I switch to gold filled because I prefer the color of gold filled. I also don’t use gold plated metal (or silver plated) because I would worry that the process of making jewelry from the metal would remove the plating.
Hardening Wire
Posted by Administrator on Dec 8, 2005
A lot of the jewelry I make uses wire as a major component. When people start out working with wire, a common problem they have is controlling the hardness of the wire.
The easiest solution, in my opinion, is to use dead soft (also known as fully annealed) wire for most applications, since hardening wire is fairly easy (at least with sterling silver - not all metals will work harden quite the same, since different metals have different working properties).
Simply working with wire will harden it to a certain extent - but sometimes a design requires wire to be harder or springier than it gets just from bending the wire into the design. Here are a few methods for hardening wire:
- Twisting - securely hold both ends of the wire (I put one end in a vise and the other in a drill) and twist it a few times. The more you twist your wire, the harder it will become. This is a great way to harden round wire that will be used for findings such as earwires. If you twist square wire or half-round wire, you will end up with wire that has an interesting twist pattern to it, which can be used as a design component.
- Hammering - this works best on two dimensional designs, and can be done after creating the design. Place your piece of wirework on a smooth, hard surface (a steel bench block works well). Lightly tap it with a hammer to harden it. If you don’t want your wire to get flattened out or dented, use a rubber mallet. If you want to add a hammered texture or flatten the wire in certain spots, use a metal hammer. The shape of the hammer head will affect the texture that is acheived, so it’s good to practice with some scrap pieces to see how the hammering changes the look of the wire.
- Tumbling - this method is used to polish and work harden a piece of finished wire jewelry. You will need a tumbler that is partially filled with stainless steel shot. Put your jewelry in the tumbler (caution: some beads may be damaged by tumbling, so don’t tumble anything with expensive beads unless you have tested the material and know that it won’t be damaged), add enough water to cover all the shot and jewelry, then add a few drops of a mild liquid dish soap, and place the lid on the tumbler barrel. Tumble for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours - sterling silver wire jewelry usually will be polished after just a few minutes, but I often leave pieces in the tumbler longer because the effect of the shot hitting the wire over and over hardens the wire a little bit more. I recommend at least partially hardening your wire before tumbling, because in my experience, tumbling does not result in wire that is as hard as twisting or hammering will get it.
Argentium (TM) Silver
Posted by Administrator on Dec 7, 2005
As a follow-up to my recent post about sterling silver, I’d like to explain a special sterling silver alloy that I use in a lot of my work. Argentium is the trademarked name of a silver alloy that contains 92.5% silver, but instead of the rest being copper, a very small amount of germanium is added to the mix. The resulting alloy has some benefits that regular sterling silver (93.5% silver and 7.5% copper) does not have.
The main benefit to the jewelry consumer is that the germanium in this alloy gives it tarnish resistance. This means you don’t have to polish your silver nearly as often as you would with standard sterling.
There are also benefits for the jewelry maker. The two things I love about this new alloy are: no firescale, and it fuses beautifully. The same cannot be said for standard sterling. Firescale is the black and sometimes reddish splotches that often appear on standard sterling when it is heated with a torch. It can be prevented by coating the metal with flux and anti-firescale sprays; however, these may contain toxic chemicals. With argentium, very little discoloration occurs when heating the metal, and it is much more easily removed than the deep firescale that often forms on regular sterling. Fusing is a way of joining two pieces of metal using heat. The nice thing about fusing is that it doesn’t require solder, which, again, may contain toxic chemicals. To fuse argentium, I use a very small dab of flux at the join, and heat the metal until it ‘flashes’ which is a sign that it has fused. I much prefer fusing to soldering, when possible, and not only because it reduces the amount of chemicals that I have to use in my jewelry work. It’s also a much simpler process: flux, heat, and that’s it. With soldering, I would also need to get the correct amount of solder and place it exactly in the right place, and then pickle until all flux and firescale is off the piece. When fusing, I sometimes need to pickle my piece, but it is for a much shorter amount of time since I don’t have problems with deep firescale, and I’m not using as much flux. Often, all I need to do to clean up a piece after fusing is polish it with a polishing cloth.
So, now you know a little bit about my new favorite metal. It contains the same amount of silver as standard sterling, but resists tarnish and is easier to work with, in my opinion, while providing the same look and quality as standard sterling silver.
What are cultured pearls?
Posted by Administrator on Dec 6, 2005
People often ask me if the pearls I use in my jewelry are ‘real’ pearls. Many people, however, are not aware that nearly all real pearls on the market today are cultured pearls. Natural pearls - pearls that form in an oyster without any assistance from humans - are extremely rare today. Chances are, if you own a strand of pearls purchased in the last 20 years, you own cultured pearls.
Cultured pearls, often also referred to as farmed pearls, are grown by an oyster around an implanted object put there by pearl farmers. In nature, pearls are formed around a natural object that is lodged inside the shell of an oyster, which irritates the oyster, causing it to excrete nacre, which coats the object to form a pearl. Cultured pearls are formed basically the same way by the oyster, but the object being coated with nacre is placed there for the purpose of forming a pearl by humans.
Once the bead or other object is implanted into the oyster, the pearl farmers wait months or years before removing the formed pearl from the oyster. The longer the wait, the more nacre will form on the pearl, which results in a better quality pearl. Many cultured pearls today are left in the oyster less than a year, resulting in a thin nacre and often a pearl that lacks luster. A pearl that is left in the oyster longer will usually have a more beautiful luster, resulting from the thicker layer of nacre that has formed around the implant.
Consumers who are considering puchasing very expensive pearls, such as Tahitian pearls, may want to have a gemologist test the pearls to see how thick the nacre is. With less expensive pearls, the cost of having pearls tested may be prohibitively expensive compared to the cost of the jewelry. In this case, the things to look for visually are: a rich luster, lack of blemishes on the surface of the pearl, the size of the pearl (larger pearls are usually more expensive than smaller pearls or similar quality), and the shape. Perfectly round pearls are often much more expensive than baroque (non-round) pearls of similar quality, and some people prefer the interesting shapes of baroque pearls. Some non-round shapes are in such high demand that pearl farmers actually implant their oysters with specific shapes in order to create pearls in these new, non-traditional shapes, such as coin and stick shapes.
What is sterling silver?
Posted by Administrator on Dec 5, 2005
Contrary to what many people believe, sterling silver is not pure silver. Pure silver is very soft and not appropriate for some jewelry applications because of its softness. Sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver alloyed with 7.5% other metals. In the United States, an alloy that is 92.5% silver can be called sterling silver, regarless of what the other 7.5% is; however, the standard alloy is 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper.
There are several non-standard alloys of sterling silver on the market today. These alloys are formulated using metals other than copper for some or all of the 7.5% that is not silver, and are usually intended to be more tarnish resistant than the standard silver-copper alloy.
Michon Jewelry Blog
Posted by Administrator on Dec 2, 2005
There is a lot of misinformation out there about jewelry, and as new metal alloys are developed, as well as new methods for enhancing stones and creating gemstones in a lab, it is becoming increasingly confusing for consumers and jewelry makers alike to know what they are getting when purchasing jewelry or gemstones. The purpose of this blog is to answer as many common questions about jewelry as possible, and when necessary, correct common misperceptions regarding stones, pearls and metals. In addition to information for consumers, I will post information about making jewelry that I think could be useful to anyone interested in creating a piece of jewelry for themselves - or to anyone who might be curious about the processes and materials I and other professional jewelry artisans use to create jewelry.
I hope this information is useful to people considering purchasing jewelry as well as to jewerly makers who want to increase their expertise about materials and methods for making jewelry.
-Leah
Jewelry Designer, www.michondesign.com
