Which Metal? Part 3: Strength
The next physical proper to consider when designing is strength. This factor has four parts: the hardness (resistance to being impressed), malleability (how much it can be worked without annealing), ductility (the ability to be drawn into wire without breaking), and tensile strength (how much stress it will withstand before breaking). Again, each alloy of each precious metal will have different characteristics. For instance, pure silver is slightly harder than pure gold, but certainly much softer than lower-karat alloys. Gold is both more malleable and more ductile than either silver or platinum. But platinum has more tensile strength than either gold or silver, meaning that very delicate wirework in platinum will hold up much better than either gold or silver.
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