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PRECIOUS METALS
PLATINUM, GOLD, PALLADIUM & STERLING SILVER
At Jewlz Handmade Jewellery, we specialize in platinum, palladium and gold jewellery as well as sterling silver on request. When deciding on which precious metal for your jewellery, it’s important to ask yourself questions such as: Does it suit my skin tone? How will it wear over time? Will it enhance the stones set into it? Can I afford it? I’ll be sure to go through each and every one of your options with you, offering advice along the way. Once you know the key properties of each metal it will be easier for you to make an informed decision as to what suits you best. It’s always your choice.
PLATINUM
Platinum opens up a world of jewellery design possibilities
Platinum is a grey white, malleable precious metal which is resistant to both wear and tarnish. Its strength means you can use very fine strands of platinum and it will maintain its shape. From a design perspective if allows me a greater freedom. Technically speaking, platinum requires high temperature melting and casting and requires extra skill and care to achieve the pristine and highly reflective finish. Still, it’s easy to see why the 18th Century King Louis XV of France called it "the only metal fit for a king"!
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GOLD
Gold is supremely versatile with a variety of colours
Gold is soft, shiny, and characteristically yellow in color. It’s the most malleable pure metal known, so it can be shaped to just about any form. A single gram of gold can be beaten into a sheet of one square metre. Because gold is so soft it is often combined with a variety of other metals, most commonly copper. For instance, a a 24K gold ring contains pure gold, while an 18k ring contains 25% copper.
Other metals are also used to affect the colour gold, for example:
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Yellow gold – usually made by adding copper and zinc
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White gold – usually made by adding palladium or nickel
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Rose gold – usually made by adding copper and silver.
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PALLADIUM
Palladium combines the look of platinum with the malleability of gold
Palladium is a lustrous silvery-white metal. It’s similar to platinum as it shares similar properties but is of a lighter weight and melts more easily. Palladium is also more malleable and can be compared to gold in this respect and is often used to make white gold alloys. In fact, in the past this was its principal use in jewellery. Palladium became popular in its own right when it finally became cheaper than platinum in the late 1990s and the technical issues around casting the metal were resolved. Palladium jewellery is bound to become increasingly popular.
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STERLING SILVER
Sterling silver offers traits of gold and unique colour
Silver is a soft, white metal. It is highly malleable, only slightly harder than gold, and can be polished to a bright lustre. However, silver tends to tarnish. For jewellery we usually use sterling silver which contains 7.5% copper and is considerably harder than the pure metal. We’re able to plate this with a thin coat of almost pure silver or rhodium to create a beautiful shine.
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