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Gold

Pure gold is softer than pure silver but harder than tin. The extreme malleability, ductility, and softness of pure gold make it practically useless for jewelry applications. For this reason, alloying is necessary to transform gold into a useable metal for jewelry.

Like any recipe, a specific amount of each ingredient is necessary for a specific outcome. 24 karat gold is pure. 14 karat gold is 14/24 pure gold.

Europe uses measurements of 1000. Gold stamped with a 585 is the equivalent of 14 karat. It is 585/1000 pure. If you divide 14 into 24 it equals .583333, which then rounds to .585

To alloy gold means to mix pure, 24 karat gold with one or more metals with different properties, in which to form one metal with more desireable qualities. In our case, it makes gold a wearable, durable metal! It also makes it possible to change the natural yellow color of gold to other colors.

For instance, mixing gold with:

Adjusting the proportions of coloring agents provides the array of colors on the market. Additional metals enhance properties such as castability, grain size, hardness, corrosion resistance, color workability, ultimate strength, and others. These addditions can dramatically change the properties of the karated metal for better or worse.

Knowing the affect that each alloy, or combination of alloys has on a metal is not merely important, but imperative to supplying superior jewelry for our customers. As an example, using alloyed metal with high tensile strength(a great deal of force needed to get the material to permanently deform, bend) for earring posts will make a longer-lasting, more durable earring. Using an alloyed metal that has more elasticity (less brittle, making it less likely to crack or break) is usually better suited for rings due to the wear and tear they take every day.
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Silver

Silver, a metallic element, used in jewelry, coinage, dentistry, photography, as an electroplate, and in many other applications. It is the whitest of metals, harder than gold, softer than copper, more malleable and ductile than any metal except gold, and probably the best conductor of heat and electricity.

Silvers' melting point 960.5 degrees celcius; specific gravity 10.5; Silvers' chemical symbol is Ag. It is classed with the precious metals because its properties make it desirable for coinage and jewelry, and with the noble metals because of its resistance to oxidation. For most industrial purposes it is hardened by the addition of some other metal.

Sterling silver contains 925 parts fine silver with 75 parts some other metal, usually copper. Coin silver, used in early 19th century pieces, was an alloy of 900 parts silver to 100 parts copper, the same proportion that was used for U.S. silver coins.
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Platinum

Platinum, is a white metallic element, and is the most important member of the platinum group; In 1735 Spanish explorers of Colombia who didn't know what to do with it, named it platina, meaning "silver of little value".

In 1920, 65% of the platinum used in America went into jewelry, but in 1972 the figure was 2%; industrial demand had priced it out of the jewelry market. With the soaring prices of gold in the mid-1970's platinum began to regain its lost glory as the metal of choice for diamond jewelry. Platinums' specific gravity is 21.4; Its' melting point is 1773.5 degrees celcius. Its chemical symbol is Pt.

In its pure form it is soft and malleable. Hardness is noticeably affected by rolling and heat treating, also by the presence of impurities even in small amounts. The alloys containing 10 percent iridium or 5 percent ruthenium possess hardness and working qualities highly desirable in jewelrymaking, and are known as "hard platinum".
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Palladium

Palladium is a white metallic element of the platinum group, used in dentistry, jewelry, and chemical and electrical equipment. Its specific gravity is 11.96 and its melting point is 1554 degrees celcius; Palladium's chemical symbol is Pd. It differs from other metals in the platinum group of metals in that it is attacked readily by nitric acid and by hot concentrated sulphuric acid.

Unalloyed, palladium is so soft and malleable that it may be beaten into leaf for decorative purposes. It is hardened by the addition of small amounts of other metals, ruthenium and nickel being the most efficient. It forms useful alloys with namy metals. When added in small amounts to gold, the yellow color fades quickly, and alloys containing 15 percent palladium are quite white. The alloy containing 95 parts palladium, 2 to 4 parts ruthenium, and the remainder rhodium is suitable for jewelry, it has the look of platinum but is only half as heavy.
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Rhodium

Rhodium is a white metallic element of the platinum group, and is used as an alloying addition to platinum and palladium jewelry and chemical ware, and as an electroplate finish. The melting point of rhodium is about 1966 degrees celcius; its specific gravity is 12.4; its chemical symbol is Rh.

Because it is the most reflective of the platinum metals, harder and whiter even than platinum, and highly resistant to corrosion, it is widely used for plating. Silver, gold, and platinum can all be rhodium plated. Though not all jewelers rhodium plate white gold as a rule due to its extremely high market price, we always rhodium finish any part of jewelry that is white gold. White gold tends to have a yellow or grayish cast because it is derived from a natural yellow metal. Adding a rhodium finish gives white gold a highly reflective, hard finish that, though, eventually wears away, helps keep white gold looking better longer.

Yellow gold is masked off with enamel paint. The white gold parts are then electroplated with rhodium. The enamel paint is removed from the yellow gold. The enamel kept the rhodium from changing the yellow golds surface to white.

We have even used rhodium to temporarily disguise yellow gold when a customer wants to "try" white metal jewelry before remounting or buying new.
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