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Hello Peter!
The problems you are having sound familiar. Occasionally
this can happen when rolling any metal especially white gold!
The number one problem is overheating the metal when pouring the
ingot. This can cause molecular damage to the alloyed metals.
Through trial and error you should be able to reduce your
temperature (a reducing or neutral flameonly; oxidizing flame -
big no - no!) to a minimum temperature and still fill your ingot
mold. Years back I switched to a horizontal ingot mold; it is
easier to keep the temperature down.
The culprit could be contamination in the refining process.
The common contaminant is tin and occasionally lead. If either
is present during the process of refinement the metal will not
roll. I had tin contamination in some 14k several years ago. I
was told the tin comes from the addition of fluoride to our
water supply, (please don't start!) and must be purified
routinely (deionized, etc.) prior to using the water in the
refinement of metals.
If you get a line on a (written for layman jewelers) metallurgy
book I would be very interested! This is an area jewelers are
commonly uninformed. (sorry folks!) We know what the metal does
and does'nt do. But we don't know why! Not very sensible when we
try to stretch the parameters when working with metals.
Good luck!
Tim
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