[Jewelry making - Article 00317] - [Orchid] Palladium Fabrication

[Jay Whaley]

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Orchideans,

    Despite warnings about gas pitting which could be expected from torch
    melting 950 Palladium, my first effort with 950 Pd. from Precious
    Metals West was an complete success in every way. (Thanks, Daniel
    Ballard at PMW for all the encouragement and good information on the
    950 PD) To test it's workability, I melted 3 small chunks of it with
    my propane/ oxygen torch in a high-heat melting dish (designed for
    platinum), until they melted into a cohesive ingot. After quenching,
    I rolled the ingot through tmy rolling mill, producing a square
    ingot, with a few annealings along the way. After rolling through my
    1/2 round side rollers to produce a half-round wire and annealing
    again, I cut and filed the ends flush, rolled the wire into a band,
    and soldered with PD Extreme solder I bought from PMW. A little
    smoothing on the solder joint, rounding on a ring mandril, and fine
    sanding on the outside, I was ready to polish. No problems with gas
    pitting. No visual evidence of a solder seam. Very fine white color,
    but very light in weight. From melting the ingot to polished ring,
    size 4, about 45 minutes work. I'd highly recommend this new metal to
    any metalsmiths who want a cheaper alternative to platinum or 18K
    white gold. 

Jay Whaley
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