[Jewelry making - Article 00151] - Re: [Orchid] [How2] Platinum inlays

[MPark763]

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>      method of preventing the platinum inlay pieces from moving in
>     burnout?  How can I do this and maintain a polish on these
>     pieces? 


Hi Steve,

    Ideally you want you design to have edges of the platinum
    sections exposed so your investment has something to grab onto,
    (just like you need keys for the gold to bond with). If not, if
    its flush, you can solder on little wires that protude into
    investment. I will bend them into little loops on the ends to
    make them more rigid during burnout. You are right that this
    won't maintain the polish on the whole platinum section. After
    casting I will cut off the pins then rubber wheel the area where
    the pin was attached and and use a pink silicon wheel and then
    carefully polish the area. Sometimes I use little hard felt
    wheels with the different platinum polishing compounds so I dont
    disturb the surrounding gold. This takes a little bit of work.
    But its less work than soldering in inlays and you have a perfect
    seam around the platinum sections, without any solder. 

    If you do go with the soldering method, its much easier to heat
    your platinum sections up a little and push them onto the wax
    right where you want them. You may need to temporarily solder on
    little pins so you can pull the little guys out again. After
    casting they should fit right in and you can then solder, I try
    to use hard but may back down if its making the gold sweat. You
    are faced with the same clean-up problems with either method. It
    is really hard to solder these in and have a perfect seam,
    without getting any solder on the platinum. I would clean-up and
    polish the same as above, if you are caredul with the rubber
    wheels you can keep everything perfectly flat, I like the big
    blue ones. 

    I am still not quite sure exactly what you are trying to do, you
    said inlay platinum on the edges of the ring. If its one
    continuous piece I would use a different method. I hope you
    customer loves it. 

Good Luck,
Mark P.

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