Hey,
I need some help with my alloying down of gold. It’s easy enough to
alloy down using pre-made alloys, but what about from scratch? How do
I do the proper percentages?
Ok for eg if 18kt pale gold is 75% gold, 16% silver & 9% copper, and
I am using the full troy oz. how much of the silver and copper should
I add? Is there a special way to do it? Or is it just plain
mathematics?
Thanks again,
Giancarlo.
Is there a special way to do it? Or is it just plain mathematics?
It’s just math. Your formula tells you what percentage each metal
is, by weight. So a pocket calculator or pencil and paper will give
you actual weights to use for a given amount of gold quickly enough.
When you melt them, put the copper on the bottom of the crucible,
then the silver, then the gold. That order will give you less
oxidation of the copper.
Peter Rowe
Hi Peter,
Ok so just to see I am getting al of this straight…
1 Troy Oz of Gold, + Alloys [to make it 18kt] = 38.8 grams
Is this correct?
Thanks.
1oz Troy = 31.1gms.
If you want to end up with 31.1gms of 18ct gold you need…
0.75 x 31.1 = 23.32gms (pure) gold
0.16 x 31.1 = 4.98gms (pure) silver
0.09 x 31.1 = 2.8gms (pure) copper
If you want to start with 31.1gms gold, you will end up with
41.47gms of 18ct gold, which will need…
0.16 x 41.47 = 6.64gms silver
0.09 x 41.47 = 3.73gms copper
Its just arithmetic.
Regards, Gary Wooding
Ok so just to see I am getting al of this straight.... 1 Troy Oz of Gold, + Alloys [to make it 18kt] = 38.8 grams Is this correct?
No. Not sure where you went wrong.
But 18K gold is 75 percent gold, right? In simpler terms, that’s 3
parts gold to 1 part alloy. So for any given amount of fine gold,
take it’s weight, and divide by 3. The result is the amount of alloy
to add.
In the case of one troy ounce, it looks like this:
In troy weight, 1 Oz Troy - 20 dwt. divide by 3 = 6.66 dwt. So add
6.66 dwt alloy to your 1 oz of gold to get 26.66 dwt of 18K gold
In grams, it’s like this:
One troy ounce = 31.1 grams. Divide by 3 to get 10.36. Add 10.36
grams alloy to your 31.1 grams (one ounce) fine gold to yield 41.46
grams 18K.
Your result is not far off what you’d have ended up with if you’d
made the mistake of forgetting that a troy ounce is 31.1 grams rather
than the lesser 28.35 grams to the avoir. ounce. But even then, it’s
off. If you had 1 avoirdupoids ounce of gold, ie 28.35 grams, and you
alloyed it to 18K, you’d divide 28.35 by 3 to get 9.45 grams alloy
which would give you 37.8 grams 18K.
If the above (the divide by 3 bit) isn’t clear, do it this way.
Any gold alloy is some ratio of gold to alloy. You can do it with
Karats, or the millesimal markings. The latter is 750 gor 18K gold,
or 583 for exactly 14K, though many slightly over karat at 585 to
allow for error or solder, etc. Either way, the difference between
the gold mark and 1000 is the percentage of alloy.
In 18K, which is really simple, it’s a ratio then, of 750 gold to
250 alloy. Or 75 percent gold to 25 percent alloy. Just another way
to say the same thing. Basic algebra tells you that the ratio of 750
to 250 can be most simply stated as 3:1, which is why I used those
numbers in the above example.
For 14K, the process is similar. The ratio of gold to alloy is 585
gold to 415, if stated in millesimal numbers, which is parts per
thousand. Or in percentages it’s 58.5 % gold to 41.5% alloy. Or in
Karats, it 14 parts gold to 10 parts alloy. If you like, you can
reduce that ratio further to 7 parts gold to 5 parts alloy (again,
basic algebra…) So for a given weight of fine gold to be alloyed to
14K, you take the weight of fine gold, and divide by whichever of
the ratio numbers (585, 58.5%, 14, or 7) that you prefer, and then
multiply by the corresponding ratio for alloy (415, 41.5%, 10, or 5).
Just make sure that the two numbers you use are in the same ratio.
You can’t do it with 585:10, for example. ) Anyway, the resulting
number is the weight, in whatever units of measure you used for the
fine gold, of the alloy you need to add to get 14K.
None of this needs to be memorized as any sort of formula. Once you
understand what the calculation is doing and why, then it’s simple,
especially if you have a cheap pocket calculator, you simply plug in
the numbers quickly and easily.
By extension, you can get more complex to change from one alloy to
another, rather than starting with fine gold.
Suppose you have a certain weight of 18K, and wish to alloy it down
to 14K.
Take the weight of the 18K, and divide by 4. You do that because you
know that 18K is 3 parts gold to 1 part alloy, so 4 parts total.
Understand? Now you know the quantity of alloy (one part of the 4),
and the quantity of gold (3 parts of the 4) Going back to the
original process, using just the calculated amount of fine gold in
your 18K, determine the amount of alloy needed to make 14K. Got that?
Now subtract the portion of alloy that’s already in the 18K, and the
result is the amount of alloy you need to add to reduce the 18K to
14K.
Of course, it gets more complex if the alloy itself differs from one
karat to the other, such as if your 18K is alloyed with equal parts
copper and silver, but you want a 14K with 3 parts copper to 2 parts
silver, with 2 percent zinc. This gets more complex, but in the end,
it’s the same sort of process.
You’d do that be breaking down your original quantity of 18K not
just to weights of gold and alloy, but weights of gold, silver, and
copper.
There are several approaches from there, but I’d start by
determining how much silver and zinc to add to get the alloy that’s
already there, to the desired end alloy composition, without yet
worrying about the gold. After you’ve got that, then figure how much
alloy your existing quantity of fine gold (in your existing gold
alloy) needs in order to to get your desired end karat.
If the total alloy you end up with after converting the existing
alloy to what you want, is less than the total required alloy for the
karat you wish, then you take just the needed additional alloy and
calculate what portions of copper, silver, and zinc you need to add
to bring the total alloy up to the needed quantity. Your working with
a number of adjustments: The amount of silver or copper or zinc
needed to convert the existing base metal alloy to the composition
needed for the alloy, then the amount of additional
silver/copper/zinc, in the desired alloy composition, you need to add
to bring the total alloy up to the needed amount for the amount of
fine gold you’ve already got in the existing karat gold. Add all
these numbers together, and you then know what to add to your 18K to
get your desired 14K composition.
it can get a little confusing, especially to describe, but it’s
actually a lot simpler than the above paragraph was to write.
Or perhaps you might find that after adjusting the alloy (for gold
color, etc), you’ve now got too much alloy for the quantity of gold
you started with. In that case, take the amount of alloy that you
need for the gold you’ve already got, and subtract from the total
alloy. That excess alloy now needs an appropriate amount of
additional fine gold added. The process to calculate this is
essentially the same as all these other calculations. For this sort
of thing, you’ll usually need a pencil and paper in addition to the
calculator, to keep the numbers straight, but in the end, it’s simply
a matter of working with the ratios. It helps to be sober and awake,
so you don’t confuse yourself as to which numbers mean which portions
of metal, but in the end, it’s still just 9th grade algebra. Pretty
basic math.
You can, if you wish, condense all the above into one of several
nice neat formulas into which you plug numbers. But then you have to
remember the formula.
Or it’s not hard to put together a simple spreadsheet on the
computer to calculate it for you. But that only works well if you’ve
got your computer in your workshop, or don’t mind going out of the
shop to do the math…
I prefer to simply remember the WHY of what’s being calculated, and
then simple logic tells you WHAT to do with the numbers, without
having to memorize formulas.
There is one other consideration to keep in mind. Any existing gold
alloy is a multiple ratio of the various componants. An 18K pale
yellow gold, for example, might be 750 gold, 225 silver, and only 25
parts copper. If you were trying to convert this to a 14K rose gold,
you might have a problem, if the desired rose gold formula had only
a little silver. Your existing silver in the 18K isn’t going to go
away, so to get the desired ratio of copper to silver for what you
might wish in that 14K, you might have to add a LOT of copper before
the total silver was only the minor componant in the needed small
ratio. Then you’ve got a LOT of alloy, so you might then have to add
quite a bit of gold before you’re back up to 14K. In this example,
even though you’re lowering the karat from 18K to 14K, in order to
change the color as you wish, you end up having to add a bunch more
fine gold in addition to copper, to get there. And if you’re
converting from one alloy to another where the desired end alloy
contains NONE of one of the constituents of the original alloy, then
you simply cannot do it. Then you have to have your existing alloy
refined, to extract the fine gold, which you then alloy down as
desired. The common example of this situation would be raising the
karat of an existing alloy that might have zinc or another deoxidizer
or additive or contaminant, when the desired end alloy has none of
it. Or trying to start with a white gold and end up with a yellow
gold or vice versa. Can’t generally do it because although you can
dilute the undesired portion with lots more gold and alloy, it
doesn’t go away totally.
Hope that helps.
Peter Rowe
To reduce pure gold ( that is 24 karat ) to 18 karat simply multiply
the amount of pure gold x.333 to determine the amount of alloy
needed. In your example you are using 1 Troy oz of pure gold so you
would multiply 31.1 x.333 to equal 10.3563 grams of alloy needed to
make 41.4563 grams of 18 karat.
To reduce the pure gold to 14 karat multiply x.714 and to reduce to
10 karat multiply x 1.400.
Good Luck
Greg DeMark
Alloying gold or other metals is pretty straightforward. First, find
an alloy chart that shows you what various metals contain, in
percentages.
This chart (courtesy of Tim McCreight) is available on
http://whaleyworkshops.com/uploads/Alloy_Chart.pdf
if you want to download a copy. An accurate scale and a calculator
will be needed.
If you have pure gold or pure silver and want to alloy it, take its
weight, and divide that number by the percentage of metal in the
karat you want, which gives you the total weight of the karat you’re
making. Add the right alloy to the pure metal until you get to the
total weight amount. Say you have 10 gr. of pure gold and want to
make 14k. 10 gr. divided by .58 ( the amount of gold in 14k, found
on the alloy chart ) gives you 17.24. Since 17.24 represents the
total amount of 14k you are making with your 10 gr. of pure 24k gold,
simply add the alloy to the 10 gr. already on the scale, until the
total weight reaches exactly 17.24, and you have 14k gold. If you
are planning to roll out this newly made 14k, I’d make sure you have
purchased a “rolling alloy” rather than a “casting” alloy. The
casting alloys are usually too brittle to roll without cracking.
Melt in a clean crucible, and mix with a carbon stirring stick. Pour
into a warmed ingot mold, and you have a bright, shiny 14k ingot.
Jay Whaley
Whaley Studios
Greetings!
Thank you all for your help. It has been of tremendous help to me
and my practice craft.
Jay, I took your advice and got some of the United Alloys, and they
are a dream, especially the S88 for Silver. My only irk [if that is
what one would call it] is that the gold hardens faster than regular
alloy I have to count how many times I roll it through the mill
before I anneal it… But in a way this is a plus for me. I just have
to get accustomed to it.
Masha Danki Caballeros. 