[Jewelry making - Article 00287] - [Orchid] Working with white gold

[Cohrs Marlin]

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    In reply to Dan's question on 50/50 gold/silver, it would not be
    14K, but rather 12K.  Just take the percent (by weight) of gold, in
    this case 50%, and multiply times 24 (as in 24K or pure gold) to get
    the carat value of the resultant alloy. 

    An interesting aside is how much gold - by VOLUME, not weight, you
    get with various alloys.  This will help understand how the new
    "hard" 24k ALLOYS can be alloys and still be labeled 24K. 

    When you determine carat value you use relative WEIGHTS of the parts
    of the alloy, yet VOLUMES can be dramatically different. By using
    the specific gravity or density of the metals you will see that in a
    10K alloy of silver you would use about two and a half VOLUMES of
    silver for every volume of gold.  With Nickel and Copper, three to
    one, Palladium, two and a quarter, Platinum, one and a quarter.  If
    you were able to alloy the lighter metals it would be dramatic,
    Aluminum 10 to 1, Calcium 17 to 1, and Lithium over 50 to 1. The
    resultant alloy would be lighter weight.  Anyone out there know the
    weights for an equivalent size sheet of 20 gauge nickel vs.
    palladium wt gold?  I see from Hover and Strong that 18KY is 1.3
    times as heavy as 10KY. 

    It is my understanding that the high carat hard gold alloys use this
    to advantage. Even with 24k being .995 pure, that would still be a
    3% volume of calcium (which is 1/12 the weight of gold), and given
    that the atomic size of Ca is much smaller than gold, each volume of
    Ca would have a lot more atoms than an equivalent volume of gold-
    the end being a hefty number of atoms to interfere with the crystal
    structure of the gold and making it harder.  The literature from the
    World Gold Council suggests that early hard .995 golds used Ca and
    rare earth metals, but the most recent are hardened by the "small
    additions of antimony and cobalt" which makes them more reusable. 

    Now if someone would explain the various spellings of carat vs.
    karat and the abbreviation of ct vs. K.  The World Gold Council uses
    the former, I always used the later. 

    Enough ramblings for one day here in cold snowy Denver. 


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