Types of Jewelry Metals
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Metal findings and metal sheet and metal wire are all used to create jewelry. Therefore, it is helpful to understand metal terminology. Metals are generally organized into two different types: base metals and precious metals.
Metals commonly alloyed with gold for jewelry purposes include: silver, copper, nickel, iron, zinc, tin, manganese, cadmium, and titanium. In addition to enhancing gold’s strength, alloying changes some of its other properties, too.
Zales offers jewelry made with a variety of traditional metals, like gold, silver and platinum, along with modern metals like tungsten, stainless steel and titanium. Our Jewelry Metals Guide reviews the metals most commonly used today.
Jewelry Metals Guide. There couldn't be fine jewelry without metals – and the variety of metals available allows jewelry to be affordable for just about anyone. Zales offers jewelry made with a variety of traditional metals, like gold, silver and platinum, along with modern metals like tungsten, stainless steel and titanium.
2. Make sure your jewelry is made of surgical-grade stainless steel or either 14-, 18- or 24-karat yellow gold. White gold may contain nickel. Other nickel-free metals include pure sterling silver, copper, platinum, and titanium. Polycarbonate plastic is okay. If you must wear earrings that have nickel, add plastic covers made for earring studs. 3.
Palladium is the newest precious metal. A platinum group metal, palladium is rare, lustrous, and naturally white. Palladium has the purity and white tone of platinum but is less dense, making it more affordable. From the same metal family as platinum, palladium is a naturally bright white metal.
Platinum jewelry is rarely 100% pure platinum. Usually, the platinum is mixed with similar metals or non-precious base metals. Generally, the higher the percentage of pure platinum, the higher the value of the jewelry.
When buying silver-filled wire to work with as an artisan, one thing you may want to ask the seller, beside the percentage of the sterling silver bond, is the color of the core if you are making a design where the ends of the wire will show.
Jewelry Metals Guide. There couldn't be fine jewelry without metals – and the variety of metals available allows jewelry to be affordable for just about anyone. Zales offers jewelry made with a variety of traditional metals, like gold, silver and platinum, along with modern metals like tungsten, stainless steel and titanium. Our Jewelry Metals Guide reviews the metals most commonly used today.
Sterling silver is prone to tarnishing, and metals other than copper can be used in alloys to reduce tarnishing, as well as casting porosity and firescale. Such metals include germanium, zinc, platinum, silicon, and boron. Recent examples of alloys using these metals include Argentium, Sterlium, Sterilite, and Silvadium.
Learn more about jewelry metals with the ... There couldn't be fine jewelry without metals ... stainless steel and titanium. Our Jewelry Metals Guide reviews ...
Jewelry Metals Guide. There couldn't be fine jewelry without metals – and the variety of metals available allows jewelry to be affordable for just about anyone. Zales offers jewelry made with a variety of traditional metals, like gold, silver and platinum, along with modern metals like tungsten, stainless steel and titanium.
Titanium can be alloyed with many other metals to enhance or alter titanium's properties. The most common alloy partners for titanium are aluminium, vanadium, iron, molybdenum and copper. Each alters titanium's properties for various purposes – for example, copper can be used to harden titanium.
Tungsten rings inlay with gold, silver, platinum are created by grinding a channel in the center of the ring and precisely "swedging" the metal into the channel under extreme pressure. The ring is then skillfully polished with diamond polishing tools and wheels creating a permanent luster and polish not possible with other metals.