hard, half hard, and soft... Its about metal

fine and sterling silver pendant by Fabric Dragon

A lot of people are getting involved in wire wrapping and metal work. Its great!  Its fun, can be done in a small space if you take care, and  some of the results are spectacular...
but
like any new art , it pays to learn the language.

This post is more for the jewelry maker and crafter, but even if you only buy jewelry, it may be nice to know.

Wire, and sometimes other metal (like sheet metal) is listed according to how flexible and pliable it is.

Soft ( often called dead soft) wire feels soft, bends in curves, and doesn't hold a shape well .
Half Hard is still easy to work with, bends in fairly tight angles, and holds its shape .
Hard is, well, hard to work with. It makes a crisp corner turn, and holds its shape very well, if you can shape it.

Everyone has their own preference on what to work with. i like soft wire myself, but most wire is sold as half hard.  The thing to remember is that wire gets harder as you work it! going from soft, to half hard, to hard,  sometimes very fast.

As you work with  it  (bend it, move it, etc) metal becomes harder and stiffer.  Eventually, it becomes BRITTLE and will snap. Most people find this out with florist wire... the cheap green stuff at the craft stores? bend it back and forth and at first it  bends easily, with a soft curve... then it gets harder, and stiffer.. and eventually it snaps.
This is called  work hardening

so if you start with soft wire, and you whip those ends around a lot working on a stone... the last bits of wire will be stiffer  and harder to work than when you started!

The way to make wire softer is to add heat... but you cannot always heat wire up to red hot once you start wrapping it around things!

so, the more you work your wire, the harder it becomes, until it finally breaks.

This can be used to your advantage as well!  by twisting or hammering wire , even a little, you can make parts of the wire harder. this is often used to make a hard pin point.  Soft wire makes lousy pins.


Different metals harden at different rates!
this confuses people, because you get used to working with one metal and when you switch the metal acts "funny". Here is my personal, totally unscientific, analysis of how each metal handles:

Gold takes the longest to work harden. it also gets stiffer very gradually and smoothly.

Silver  hardens faster than gold. At first its a gradual change but then it gets a lot harder very fast toward the end. 

Copper is tricky.  It seems very soft for a bit, as though it isnt getting harder at all, and then suddenly it gets VERY hard... and not much after that it snaps.

This is why i actually do not like to tell beginners to practice on copper.  It can be very frustrating.  Given today's metal prices, i understand that practicing with silver may not be possible.  Just keep in mind that when copper suddenly snaps on you, its NOT your fault...
and remember that when moving from copper to silver (or gold) it will not be as abrupt a change.



(i hope to add more photos when i get back from my jewelry show)

Gold, Gold-filled, Gold plate, Vermeil... what does it all mean?

When a jeweler works with metal for a while, it can be easy to forget that when you first started, you didn't know what all those words meant.
so I was posting about Jewelry and a friend of mine asked "can you explain what 'gold-filled' means?"
yes
yes i can... and since one person asked i tend to assume there are more people who do not know... therefore i wrote a blog post about it.

GOLD
Gold is an element.  It is , in jewelry, defined by its "karat" with 24 k being pure gold (and far too soft to use in jewelry usually) and 12k being half gold and half something else.
A mixture of several metals is called an "Alloy" so anything that isnt 24k gold is an Alloy of gold and .. something.

the most typical gold jewelry in the United States is 14k, or just over half Gold ...

In other countries the usual karat may be higher, most Indian jewelry is 18k, for example.
Each country has a minimum karat to be labeled as "gold" .


By itself Gold is yellow, but it can be made white by adding nickle or palladium... rose by adding more copper and less white metal,   green by adding pure silver.... (with the exception of  the white gold, the colors are subtle)

Because so many people are allergic to Nickel, if you are considering white gold for jewelry, verify what metal is being used!

Gold Plate and Gold Filled

Gold plated means that a base metal (usually brass) has been lightly coated (usually by electroplating) with gold.  The thickness of the gold can vary  between .5 microns and 2.5 microns for heavy plating, but averages somewhere around  1 micron in thickness.
for comparison purposes.... a human hair is 100 microns, and a dollar bill is about 200 microns thick

so Gold plate is really very thin.
it scratches easily, exposing the metal underneath, but this is often not immediately obvious because brass is gold colored too...
until it tarnishes.

Gold-filled does NOT mean it is "filled with gold" but instead means it is  gold... filled with base metal... usually brass.

I usually work with wire, and gold PLATED wire would be easily scratched just by handling and using metal tools and pliers...
Gold-FILLED wire, on the other hand, is at least ten times more gold... often a hundred times thicker gold!

so my Gold Filled Wire is in fact a hollow gold tube with a brass core...
(see chart )

 In addition, quite often there is an additional layer of  alloyed gold gold and brass between the brass layer and the gold top layer...

But the main thing you need to bear in mind is that Gold Filled jewelry has been around in a few cases since the early 1900s.. still in great shape!  Unlike gold plate it doesn't easily chip, flake or scratch,  and will retain its appearance indefinitely.

I, personally, am hard on my jewelry.  I have never had any plated jewelry last longer than a season... i have items of gold-filled jewelry that are now over 20 years old and look great.

The main advantage of Gold-filled jewelry is simply cost.  While it is a lot more gold than gold plate, and therefore more costly than gold plate; its a lot less gold than solid gold, and therefore much less expensive than that.

So what the heck is Vermeil?

Vermeil is gold plate.... but instead of gold plate on top of brass or some other base metal, Vermeil is gold plate on top of Sterling Silver!  This can be a nice option when you want the look of gold, but can only pay silver prices....
but
with silver prices going up as high as they have, its not usually much savings over gold-filled jewelry. (it used to be)

Speaking of Silver...

With the cost of silver being as high as it has been, and people being on tight budgets due to the recession, it has finally been economical to create "silver-filled" wire and jewelry.  Previously it just wasn't worth it.

Silver-filled is lovely to work with, thicker than silver plate, and less expensive than solid (see Gold Filled, above)
BUT!
If  it is used with a silver colored core /base metal....(instead of brass) then you have to wonder what metal is white/silver colored, and cheap... and the usual answer is Nickel.  I always advise asking what the base /core metal is if you have Nickel allergies.

(and remember, Sterling Silver is .925 silver. It is an alloy of silver and copper.  Pure Silver is often called "fine silver" and i love working with it. )


I hope that answers your questions! Please feel free to comment on my blog, or my Facebook page, with any other jewelry related questions you may have...




_________________________________________________________________________________
Links, and more

artisan plating company the source of the chart on gold filled  (single, double, etc) and a LOT of charts and information on comparing plated with gold filled, etc

source of header photo plus more information on periodic table and elements

Wikipedia on colored gold

Rio Grande on Silver Filled also a nice chart on thickness comparisons.

Precious Metal and the Law

Now most people have noticed that the market price of metal (how much money is it worth just as metal) can affect jewelry prices, but there is another thing about precious metals that is very important to a Jeweler:
the law.

As a jeweler, or a jewelry buyer or seller, one of the things you have to understand is how the law affects the metal your jewelry is made from. 

If I sell you jewelry that is supposed to be solid 14k Gold, and it is not (lets say i got something mixed up and i sold you  gold plate instead) then i am guilty of...

counterfeiting.

yes, counterfeiting.  Gold, especially, is governed by some very very strict labeling rules because of its use in currency. it is protected in the USA by the treasury department!

This is why, on one memorable occasion that i spilled a container of Gold-filled beads, into a container of 14k solid gold beads, that i had to list them ALL as Gold filled! (ouch)

if I sold you gold filled and you found out it was solid gold? no problem
if , however, I sold you "gold" and it was only gold filled?  big problem.

If you ever see a small independent jeweler selling  something that says "a mixture of  14k gold, gold plate, and base metal" or something like that, it probably means they forgot to label their supplies...

This is why some of us (cough cough) have chosen to only  use one thing (in my case gold filled) unless we have a special request. We cannot get it mixed up if we only have one thing!

The bigger jewelry stores and even some of the smaller jewelers now have testing equipment that makes this a lot less of a problem, but when a single mistake can mean multi thousand dollar fines, you tend to be a bit paranoid.

Sadly this primarily affects the honest jewelers. The fly by night folks who set up at a show, knowing they will never be able to be found again? They are not going to be concerned about the fines, because you have to track them down first.

This can also affect the individual selling   or re selling jewelry at things like flea markets. Yes, even if you just set up a table to sell a few old pieces you do not want anymore! If you label something as "gold" you become completely liable for that!

Advice :

* I have seen some individuals who have sold what was actually White Gold, at Sterling Silver prices... and likewise seen people selling "German Silver" (Nickle) as Sterling.  The issue of labeling is not limited to yellow metal... as a seller, its worth having it tested to be sure, as a buyer it pays to be cautious.

*Many antique and older items of jewelry have FAR more value as an antique than they are worth in material!  As an example: vintage Bakelite (a type of plastic) is worth a small fortune to a collector, but its "just plastic".
It is often worth getting it officially appraised and tested by a reputable jeweler (preferably one who handles estate sales and antiques if it is an older piece)  before making any decisions.


* Its easy to take advantage of a customer, if they are trying to cheat you.
sounds weird, doesn't it?

If the customer is trying to take advantage of the "poor merchant" because "they don't know how valuable this is" then they are easy targets for a merchant who has something that looks valuable, and really  is not.

so if you think you are cheating the merchant? ... you may be getting cheated...
ah Karma....

I got a rock... (part 1)

Serpentine

For those of you who are younger than i am (that would be most of you) the headline is from a Charlie Brown (tm) Halloween special, where everyone else gets candy and Charlie Brown looks in his bag and says: "i got a rock.." Poor Charlie Brown.

For many of us, though, we would be delighted to get a rock. rocks are wonderful!  Rocks of some kind are important in jewelry.  Yes there are technical differences between rocks, and stones, but lets cut to the important stuff:

what the heck is it?  (part 1) and how do i take care of it? (part 2)

the two questions are related. some stones used in jewelry are very delicate, some are "hard as rocks" and if you do not know what it is you have, you have to assume its delicate.

so...
The questions that tell you "what the heck is it?" are:

What kind of rock is it?
and
What was done to your rock?

What kind of Rock is it?

You would think this would be an easy question to answer, wouldn't you?  If it says a single word , like "Amethyst" or "Topaz" then it generally is exactly that (but not always).  The problem comes up when the name is descriptivce and has places or other words attached to it.
"Picture Jasper"
"London Blue Topaz"
"Korean Jade"
"Mystic Topaz"

so what are they?  Are they Jasper, Topaz, and Jade? or something else entirely?  Whenever you see a compound word used to describe a stone, you need to do a bit of research to figure it out.

Picture Jasper is a type of Jasper (ok, its Jasper) that has natural markings (ok, its not created) that make "pictures" or look like images or landscapes. (ok.. this is a straight forward desciption of what THIS kind of Jasper happens to look like)

London Blue Topaz is a Topaz (ok, it is a topaz) that has been irradiated (we will cover that later) to create a specific shade of deep blue (color ). This name is a "trade name" (oh, its a marketing name, and probably trade marked).

Korean Jade is a type of Serpentine (woah! its not Jade) with a specific coloring, found in many places worldwide... (not Jade, but Serpentine, and should be cared for as "Serpentine")

Mystic Topaz is really Topaz, (the stone is Topaz) but has a treatment (see next section) that is very delicate.

Get the idea?  A compound name may simply be descriptive, or tell you why this type of Jasper (for instance) is different that the other kind, but it could mean that it needs different care or that it is, in fact, NOT the stone you think it is!

Obviously if you want to take care of your jewelry properly you need to know what kind of rock it is first!

Some types of stone are very sensitive to light, some to heat, some to chemicals (like swimming pools and cleaning products) and a few , a VERY few, can go from a lying out in the sun at a swimming pool to cleaning the floors and come out just dandy.

Knowing what your stone actually IS is important to caring for it (and cleaning it) properly!


What was done to your rock?

 Now it gets complicated.  Gemstones, and other pretty rocks, are subjected to all sorts of treatments to make them "prettier" to get rid of flaws, or to let them survive encounters with things like chlorinated water.
What treatments are "acceptable" and which ones are fraud, can be a very tough argument.

Heat Treatment: this is one of the oldest ways of improving or altering a stone.  We have documentation of this being done back to the earliest written records, and we have evidence of it from before written history.  There is nothing wrong with this, although of course it should be disclosed to the buyer.
Almost all Citrine, Carnelian, and Amber on the market today has been heat treated. This is usually permanent, and stable.

Dyeing: is a treatment that is considered usual and normal in some stones, and i dislike intensely. 
Real stones can be dyed to enhance their color or to make them look totally different.  Often this means "make them look like a more valuable stone". Turquoise, as an example, is often imitated by dyeing  various stones that are worth far less money, but real (if poor grade) Turquoise is often dyed to give it a better color!  Dyed stones can lose their color if exposed to the wrong chemicals or cleaners.

For myself, personally, i only use dyed stones that CANNOT be mistaken for something else.

dyed Magnesite

The above picture is dyed Magnesite.  This stone (and it is a real stone) is naturally sort of putty colored, with inclusions in a kind of crackle pattern.  It is often used to make imitation (fake) Turquoise or Lapis, because the pattern on the stone (which doesn't take dye) mimics the look of a real Turquoise.  I will not buy it in colors that mimic natural stone, because i don't want anyone mistaking it for something it is not.  It makes a very pretty piece of jewelry, though...

Magnesite, dyed blue, wrapped in three metals

Irradiation, something that can happen naturally deep in the earth, is often artificially used to create or change a color in a stone. Topaz is the best example of that.  ALL blue Topaz is irradiated.  A very very few pieces were naturally created by radiation in the earth, but unless you curate a museum, or dig your own, assume all blue topazes are real Topaz that has had their color altered.  This treatment is permanent and the colors *usually* do not fade.

London Blue Topaz. The color is created by radiation

Filling, Oiling, and Stabilizing:  Here is where it gets increasingly complicated.  Each of these types of treatment can be good, or bad.  It can mean something very simple, or a complete change in the stone.

To start with the simplest one, Stabilizing, this means a resin has been forced into the stone at high pressure.  it changes the characteristics of the stone, a lot.  On the plus side it can take a fragile stone like Turquoise, and make it more resistant to chlorine, and other hazards, but it can also be used to take "waste" Turquoise and pass it off as good Turquoise. A lot of whether this is acceptable or not depends on if it is properly labeled, and whether any color was added.

Emeralds (and every member of the Beryl Family) naturally have very small cracks in the stone.  In Emeralds these cracks are filled by "oiling" which makes these natural cracks less visible. This is an accepted and usual practice...UNLESS they also use color (dye) to change the apparent color of the stone... and you wont be able to tell. This is one reason why buying a GOOD Emerald is a tricky purchase


Assembled or Reconstituted:  This means that bits of a real stone have been fused in some fashion, often with resin.  This is sort of like a fish stick, or a chicken nugget, compared to a real fish fillet or chicken breast..  I wouldn't mind this, except that all to often the stones end up being sold, and re sold, and gifted, and somewhere along the way the fact that this is NOT the real deal gets lost.  This is most commonly seen in Opals, Amber and Turquoise.

Coated:  Applying a coating to the surface of a stone can make some incredible effects.  It is, however, able to fade, or be scratched off, and is usually sensitive to chemicals. "Mystic Topaz" is coated... and really quite lovely, but too delicate for me.

a very well cut and treated Mystic Topaz, from Gemselect

Obviously you also need to be aware of outright fakes.  If you think something is a pearl, and its actually glass, plastic, or resin, then that is a fake not a "treatment".  That more or less falls under "what kind of rock is it".

Knowing what kinds of fakes are commonly available for different stones will help you identify potential problems.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Links and Sources:

Jade earrings and the trade routes

My Etsy shop

Gemstones, By Cally Hall (book): an easy to read book, with color pictures, that is fairly accurate.

Gemstones of the World: by Walter Schumann (book): intended for someone with more background in geology or gemology, it is one of the best for identifying possible fakes, and which stones can be confused.

"I got a rock... (part 2)" blog post.

Precious Metals, an introduction

Precious Metals?

A lot of people get confused about the term "precious metals" when it is used in jewelry.   It simply means metal that has a significant monetary value in and of itself, not just for "art".  Most Precious Metals were used AS money at some point, and in many cases used to back the value of money when printing made paper money possible.

This doesn't mean  that good jewelry cannot be made from less valuable metals, of course!  I have made a lot of very nice pieces in copper, and lesser metals are often combined with precious metals for artistic reasons.  However it pays to know a bit about the labeling, and uses, of previous metals.

The better known precious metals are gold, and silver.

Gold

Is it real?  Sometimes you see labels on things that say "gold" but they are not real gold.  Usually these items are just gold colored.  Every now and then you will see something labeled gold, with some kind of additional word, like "jewelers gold" or "filled" or "plated".  This can be very different things....

Real Gold is labeled  in "karats", with 24 k  gold being pure gold (and too soft to use in most applications).
Different countries have different laws about gold, and different expectations.

In the USA most jewelry is 14k gold, or just over half gold and just under half other metals.  These other metals are used to give the gold more hardness and scratch resistance. 

Depending on what "other metals" are used you can get different colors of gold.  For example: White Gold is admixed with a white metal... often nickel.  the problem is that many people are allergic to nickel and can react very badly to it.  White Gold can also be made by admixing other metals, like palladium, but its a bit more expensive. If you are nickel sensitive, always ask what metal was used in your white gold!

Because gold is expensive, people often use gold plate.  Gold plate means a THIN layer of gold on top of a less expensive metal (usually brass).  Gold plate can chip, or peel, if not cleaned carefully, or if it gets scratched, and the metal underneath can often cause irritation. People who are sensitive to "base metals" like nickel, should probably avoid gold plate.

Gold-filled, however, is very different.  Instead of a thin coating of gold, like gold plate, a gold filled item is a thick hollow tube of gold, that was filled with another metal (often brass, yes).   It is hundreds of times thicker than gold plate and not very prone to scratching or peeling.  It can be very difficult to tell a "14k Gold-filled" item from a solid 14k Gold item.

(For a Gold Filled Item the abbreviation "GF" must be added, so an item stamped "14k gf" is gold filled)

Vermeil is a special case.  Vermeil is a gold plate (a thin layer of gold) on top of  Sterling Silver!  This is the exception to the rule about not wearing gold plate if you have  metal sensitivities.  As long as you are not sensitive to Sterling Silver, of course!

Silver

With Silver you are usually only dealing with a couple of basic questions:
Is it really silver? or just silver colored?
Is it Sterling Silver, or Fine Silver?

Anytime you see a place name be very wary. Its not always fake, sometimes its a marketing question, but "German Silver" is another name for nickel, and "Hill Tribes Silver" means it was made in a specific place, out of real silver!  So if you see a place name on your "silver" always ask what it means!

Sterling Silver is not pure silver;  A lot of people get confused by that.  Sterling silver is .972 silver, and .028 something else (that's not a lot).  Usually the silver in this mixture is mixed (alloyed) with copper.  Now i love Sterling Silver, but as a jeweler the copper sometimes causes some issues, like making it a bit trickier to solder.  Sometimes you get some metals mixed into silver, sold as "Sterling" that shouldn't be there, like nickel.  This is why i always sourced my sterling silver very carefully, to make sure it was what it should be!

Sterling silver is also often plated with another metal to stop tarnishing!  this is different than "silver plate" (see gold plate, above) its real sterling silver plated with a silver colored metal that doesn't tarnish...
and....
now that silver prices are climbing, we have "silver-filled" on the market!

No one used to make silver filled wire or jewelry, it just wasnt worth the time, but now that silver prices are so high we are seeing silver filed on the market.  Silver filled should also be labeled (like "sterling silver filled") but as with gold, when you buy something second hand, you never know.

Fine silver, my favorite, is .999 pure silver.  Because it has no copper admixed it doesn't tarnish as much, and it behaves better when you heat it to make head pins.  Some people who react to Sterling Silver can wear fine silver, so its worth giving it a try.


There are other precious metals of course.
Platinum is the one most people know.  Its very hard to work, so most small jewelers don't handle it, but its fairly non-allergenic and sturdy.

Aluminum used to be a precious metal, did you know that?  It was worth more than silver until a new technique made it possible to extract the ore easily.  That dropped its price so much that now its used instead of "tin" foil!

There are many other metals used in jewelry work: Niobium, copper, brass, bronze, pewter, and more.  There is nothing wrong with using a less valuable metal in jewelry!  (or no metal at all) I have several of my favorite pieces that were primarily made in copper and brass.

I just make sure the ear wires (the part that goes through my ears) is silver or gold, or stainless steel. After all, that's the only part of an earring that actually has to touch my ears!