[Jewelry making - Article 00027] - [Orchid] Metals - aluminium and ???

[Freak Style]

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    As a student I designed a bangle/cuff made out of thin guage brass
    and copper in a weave type design.  At the moment I am trying to
    develop the design to produce in quantity as my first sale piece. 
    As I will only be dipping my toe in the water and don't know how
    well it will sell it is important to me to not spend up big on the
    initial material costs. 

    For this particular piece the value is in the design whether or not
    precious metals are used...  I am wanting to find a combination of
    two differently coloured metals to use for the piece.  A high
    priority is tarnish resistance.  I have in mind to use aluminium as
    one of the metals - I have only used aluminium once before in
    jewellery - I know that it is soft and scratches easily and am
    wondering if there are any other problems with it that I should know
    about before I go ahead and use it. 

    For the other metal I was thinking perhaps coloured titanium... of
    which I know nothing about - I have never used titanium in
    jewellery.  I have always assumed that titanium must behave
    similarly to aluminium as this is the impression I got whilst
    watching my friend work on a titanium piece years ago. 

    I am also curious about gunmetal - I am wondering if this would also
    be an option.  In my research so far I have turned up very little
    information about it.  What I have found out is that it is a brass
    alloy - would this automatically mean that it is not resistant to
    tarnish? 

    Tarnish resistance is a high priority mainly because this piece sits
    against a large area of skin and I doubt I would get repeat business
    from customers who end up with big green patches on their skin after
    wearing the cuff.  Also, I am intersted in avoiding any metals that
    a large percentage of the population has an allergy to - the only
    one I know of so far is nickel. 

    Thanks for any advice you can offer. 

R.R. Jackson

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