Posted by fjewelrystore.com on July 16th, 2007 — Posted in Jewelry Making
Zircon is a natural gemstone. It comes in a variety of colors such as colorless, white, blue, green, dark red, yellow, brown and orange. Its brilliant luster and fire combined with its hardness and range of colors makes it a most desirable gem.
The natural gemstone zircon is often misunderstood with the laboratory grown and inexpensive cubic zirconia. This is because of their similar sounding names. Though zircon looks like the synthetic cubic zirconia, the two are totally different.
Zircon is mined in from Norway, Austria, Germany, Srilanka, Combodia, Myanmar, Australia and other countries.
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Posted by fjewelrystore.com on June 29th, 2007 — Posted in Jewelry Making
Gold is available in a wide selection of colors ranging from red to gray. By combining gold with other metals, colored gold alloys are produced. For example, rose gold contains copper and green gold contains silver. The richness of the color is regulated by how much of a particular metal is added. A deeper rose color is achieved by adding more copper. More than one metal can also be used to produce less common colors. Grey gold contains both copper and iron. Although the base metals are mixed in different quantities to produce these gold alloys, the actual amount of gold does not change. Both 14 karat rose gold and 14 karat blue gold contain the same amount of gold.
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Posted by fjewelrystore.com on May 29th, 2007 — Posted in Jewelry Making
Rubies and sapphires belong to the same family of minerals and thus have the same physical characteristics. Among gemstones, they are the hardest, second only to diamonds, but still require gentle handling. The term ruby only applies to the color red. However, sapphires range in color from blue to green, black, orange, pink, yellow, purple or colorless (white).
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Posted by fjewelrystore.com on May 13th, 2007 — Posted in Jewelry Making
Garnets are a related group of gemstones. This family includes the rhodolite, demantoid, grossular, hessonite, spessarite, almandine, mandarin, malaya, tsavorite.
Garnets are available in many colors such as orange, green, purpe red, pink, gold and more. They may look similar to ruby or emerald. The dark, slightly brownish or violet red color is the most popular.
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Posted by fjewelrystore.com on March 14th, 2007 — Posted in Jewelry Making
There are fashion trends in jewelry, just as there are in clothing, architecture, or cars. In the 1930s much commercial jewelry was made in whitegold, with platinum also widely used. The cool, grayish metals worked well with very streamlined designs, and were complementary to the industrialized style of design. Both metals fell out of favor during the 40s, partly due to platinum being declared a strategic material during WorldWar II. Now these two white precious metals are regaining the public interest.
In the 70s, a fad for Southwestern Indian style jewelry, primarily of turquiose and silver, swept across the country. This caused a resurgence in the use of silver for a less formal style of jewelry, an interest which has continued to this day. (As an aside, many commercial repair shops, used to working only with gold, had to learn the differences between working with silver and gold, as the silver started coming in for repair, much of it made by Hong Kong “Indians”). Then, perhaps as a backlash to the ornate Indian-style silver jewelry, the next major fad was for multiple thin gold chains, usually worn just by themselves, or occasionally with a simple, small pendant.
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Posted by fjewelrystore.com on February 19th, 2007 — Posted in Jewelry Making
For most of us, cost can be a deciding factor when choosing which metal to use. Silver is far less expensive to work with than either gold or platinum, and for those who like to experiment with techniques, silver is the obvious choice. There is something intimidating about trying out a new technique on several hundred dollars worth of material. But most metalworkers can afford to waste a few dollars worth of silver. Of course, all precious metals can be reclaimed by sending them to a refiner, so the metal is not really lost, but not everyone can afford to tie up a lot of money in scrap.
On occasion, it is practical to build a prototype in silver, even if the design is intended for gold or platinum. While working with the less expensive material, you can try new techniques or work out the most efficient steps for the process. This can also give you a good idea of how much time the project will take to complete, and therefore what the final price range will be. If you are trying to stay within a certain price point, it helps to know before you begin production if the time allotted is realistic.
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Posted by fjewelrystore.com on January 9th, 2007 — Posted in Jewelry Making
While silver, gold, and platinum have some similarity in working characteristics, there are also distinct differences that should be considered when designing a piece of jewelry. All the metals are similar when sawing, filing, bending, or polishing, although silver does give less resistance to saw blade, file, or pliers — even well-annealed 18-karat yellow gold is harder to bend than sterling. And each alloy of gold will be slightly different, depending on the metals used in the alloy. For instance, many goldsmiths prefer using a white gold alloyed with palladium, a platinum group metal, rather than with nickel, because it is not so brittle.
As far as the workability of the metals is concerned, your choices when designing will depend to some degree on your skill level and the equipment available. If your design is for a large piece, you need to consider your torch capability. Gold, because it does not conduct heat very well, can be spot soldered with a small torch. Silver, on the other hand, needs to be heated evenly all over, and thus will require a larger flame. Platinum has its own techniques and equipment requirements, especially for casting. If you do not have the tools or experience, platinum will not be an option for you.
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Posted by fjewelrystore.com on December 21st, 2006 — Posted in Jewelry Making
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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Posted by fjewelrystore.com on December 9th, 2006 — Posted in Jewelry Making
When designing jewelry, the metal’s physical characteristics must be considered, one of which is weight. The pure form of each of the precious metals is an element, meaning that its molecules cannot be further broken down into separate atoms.
Each has its own symbol on the periodic table. Gold is Au (for aurum, Latin for gold); silver is Ag (the Latin for silver is argentum); and platinum is Pt. Each of these elements has a definite specific gravity, which is a measurement of density (the ratio of mass to volume), expressed in a relationship to the density of water. By definition, the specific gravity of water is 1, so each metal’s specific gravity shows how much more than water that metal would weigh, given an equal volume. For example, the specific gravity of 24-karat gold is 19.32, meaning that a piece of 24-karat gold is 19.32 times heavier, and denser, than a body of water of equal volume. The specific gravity of fine (pure) silver is 10.49, that of platinum is 21.45. Therefore, a one-square-inch sheet of 20-gauge pure gold will weigh almost twice as much as the same size sheet of fine silver, but about 10 percent less than the same size sheet of platinum. Each alloy of gold, silver, or platinum will have a different specific gravity, depending on the proportions of the metals in that alloy. That one-square-inch sheet of 10-karat gold would be only slightly heavier than the silver sheet, since the specific gravity of 10-karat yellow gold is 11.6.
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Posted by fjewelrystore.com on December 8th, 2006 — Posted in Jewelry Making
What will it be – gold, silver, or platinum? Jewelry designers have a number of things to consider before making a choice. Several factors enter into each decision; one of the most basic is which metal to use. Many jewelers prefer to work only in gold, while others confine themselves to silver. And now, platinum is becoming more popular, adding a third possibility. A growing number of metal artists also enjoy working in all three metals, often combining two or more metals in the same piece. There are some inherent differences among the metals that must be taken into consideration when designing for each: color; technical aspects such as weight and strength; workability; the cost of the material; current fashion preferences; and last but not least, if you are a professional, market value.
Of course, there are also designers who work with other metals, such as copper alloys, nickel, aluminum, steel, or refractive metals like titanium, but for the purpose of this article, we’ll stick to the big three — the most popular metals by far.
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