Sorry to change the subject, but i would really appreciate if
someone could give me an expertise feed back on purple gold. I know
it can be very brittle, but a company named aspial owns apparently a
patent on a stable version (www.aspial.com). Does any one have
experience with purple gold?
Thanks
Does any one have experience with purple gold?
Go check out my site http:// www.meevis.com. Go look under
technical/purple gold.
If that’s the stuff you want to make feel free to ask anything,
anytime.
Cheers Hans Meevis
Thanks for your answer!
I should mention though that i am not a jeweler but only looking for
purple gold to buy for my 10th wedding anniversary next summer. I
check your website out and though your purple gold looks nice, i was
looking for something deeper in color… plus i am quite far from St
Marteen… :-/
Have you check www.aspial.com at all? what do you think about it? I
am tempted to buy a ring but quality can be disappointing in Asia (i
am thinking China, but maybe Singapore is different) and wanted to
have a professional opinion about it.
Anyone else knows where to find purple gold in Europe or USA?
Thanks to all
Pascal
Pascal,
I have been working with purple gold for years, and it is a
difficult metal to work with. It is an alloy of gold and aluminum,
and no matter what you do to it, it is brittle. Like, it will crack
if you smack it hard. That doesn’t lend it to being a useful ring
material. As a component in a ring, like an accent or an inlay, it is
possible to wear it and not break it. I usually use it by surrounding
it in platinum.
The color of the material is also not a deep purple, but it is
noticeably purple. You can’t change the color, or enhance it.
I am not familiar with the Aspial formula, but I suspect it is
similar to the formula that I have been using. They may have
developed an alloy that is slightly less brittle, but I doubt that it
could be forged or even bent, only cast into shape. The very nature
of this alloy is that it is brittle.
Doug
Douglas Zaruba
33 N. Market St.
Frederick, MD 21701
301 695-1107
@Douglas_Zaruba
Dear Orchid folks:
Does anyone knows about where I can get more about
purple gold.
Thanks & Regards,
Penny
It is an alloy of gold and aluminum, and no matter what you do to it, it is brittle. Like, it will crack if you smack it hard.
I tried this once and altered the % of aluminium down to somewhere
around 5% and got a blush purple " tone" to the gold and it was
workable but too expensive for me to continue experimenting with-goo
Does anyone knows about where I can get more about purple gold.
Yes, search the Orchid archives for lots of about this
difficult to work alloy.
James Binnion
@James_Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts
360-756-6550
it is a difficult metal to work with. It is an alloy of gold and aluminum, and no matter what you do to it, it is brittle.
Have you checked Aspial’s website… it really is a deep purple
color, could it be a different formula than just Al+Au? i am actually
very tempted to buy a piece from them, but then am hesitant about
doing the “smack and crack” test ;-p… let me know if you become
more curious than me and actually buy a piece!
Cheers
Pascal
Does anyone knows about where I can get more about purple gold
FWiW, I went to Aspial’s website and sent them an email message
asking, simply, “What is purple gold?” I have received no reply.
Christine “my favorite color used to be purple” in Littleton,
Massachusetts
Have you checked Aspial's website... it really is a deep purple Color"
Another observation and I’m not sure it’s even possible but; it
almost looks like the purple gold in the Aspial rings is reticulated.
Ryan Taylor - Toronto
Aspial is apparently using some kind of patented high tech alloy
manufacturing process that supposedly makes its purple gold
workable. They are also using one or more metals in addition to
aluminum in their alloy. The color that is shown on the website is
not as intense as the purple gold I have seen before in person but
that may be an artifact of the web/photoshop process or it may be as
saturated a color as Aspial’s alloy develops. I too would like to see
it in person but not enough to purchase it.
Jim
James Binnion
@James_Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts
360-756-6550
Pascal,
Why don’t you contact Aspial and see how durable they claim their
metal is. If they will back it up with a warrantee, then buy it. I
have experimented with this alloy enough to know that I was never
able to make a malleable alloy with a deep purple color. I can easily
make a deep purple color on a web site… Photoshop is a wonderful
tool.
Douglas Zaruba
33 N. Market St.
Frederick, MD 21701
301 695-1107
@Douglas_Zaruba
Have you checked Aspial's website... it really is a deep purple color
The color seems to me just about right for the usual 18K
gold/aluminum mix, but always, in judging color on a web site, keep in
mind both the odd things that can happen to color in photography, and
the even odder things that very often, if not usually, DO happen to
photographs in photoshop on the way between a camera and a commercial
web site like Aspials. The pieces they show all appear to be used in
just the way one would expect of a hard brittle inlay-suitable but
not malleable material, and I note that almost all pieces are
textured or carved (which will make the color look a lot more
intense). The few that are not, or are close enough photos, sure
looked to me like there was at least some pitting and porosity in the
purple. The only thing that I noticed that was slightly unexpected was
in their tech statement, they list the gold content as 80 percent,
which is slightly higher than the ideal ratio if just gold and
aluminum are used, for a 1:1 atomic ratio. Perhaps this has something
to do with their claimed improvement. Personally, though, I suspect
it’s just a slightly inaccurate statement, perhaps to avoid giving
competitors a perceived free bit of info. The other things I noticed
are their claims about the problems they’ve solved. They say the stuff
is unstable, blotchy colored, and brittle, and that they’ve got a
stable form. Well, “stable” doesn’t mean it’s not still just as
glass like and brittle. It is indeed a pain in the rear to make if you
don’t have the right equipment to melt it under vacuum or truly oxygen
free conditions (a requirement easily met by many of the standard
higher tech platinum casting machines such as a firm this size no
doubt uses anyway), but they’re hardly the first folks to use it well
among firms that do have access to that equipment. And the samples
I’ve seen over the years have not seemed to have any apparent problem
with dull or blotchy colors, or any great instability of the color or
material once made. Color variations I’ve seen have generally been
different shades of violet or purple based not on instability or the
like, but on different ratios of gold to aluminum. There are several
intermetallic compounds of gold and aluminum, with different ratios of
gold and aluminum atoms. The 1:1 ratio that’s just a tad higher than
18K has always seemed to me the best color, but there are others.
Peter
Peter Rowe
thanks a lot for your detailed analysis. It sure does seem porous or
grainy and that is probably as you said is what makes the color
deeper. And the color IS deeper; I saw a pair of earrings by myself
on time in HongKong airport quite a while ago (and that is how i
started looking for about purple gold).
Admitting it is the same alloy that you have been using, does purple
gold require special care (apart from not banging it), i mean can
the normal cleaning solutions be used or could that damage the
alloy?
Thank you very much.
Pascal - France
Another observation and I'm not sure it's even possible but; it almost looks like the purple gold in the Aspial rings is reticulated.
What do you call “reticulated” what effect would that have on a
piece of jewelry?
Pascal
I went to Aspial's website and sent them an email message asking, simply, "What is purple gold?" I have received no reply.
That is my problem with ordering on line… i do not know if the
quality is good and i NEVER received an answer from them!!! To many
unknowns for me to order a piece!
PS: what is your favorite color now then… any suggestions for my
wedding anniversary?
Regards
Pascal
Another observation and I'm not sure it's even possible but; it almost looks like the purple gold in the Aspial rings is reticulated.
More like carved with a bur of diamond tool. I’d but it’s just a
hart bur to texture the stuff, and I’ll bet one reason might be to
hide any porosity they get. I’m pretty sure, though it could be a
photographic anomoly, that one or two of the pieces I saw where they
didn’t have a deep texture of some sort, had visible pinholes and
porosity in the surface… Just a guess, but I’m leaning in that
direction. The texture, whether carved, or sandblasted as seems the
case in many, will not only hide any porosity, but make the color
stand out better.
Peter
Isn’t interesting that someone has a purple gold in use, and already
it’s the wrong color.
Larry
Larry Paul Casting Co.
740 Sansom St.
Philadelphia, PA 19106
215.928.1644
Isn't interesting that someone has a purple gold in use, and already it's the wrong color.
what do you mean “wrong” color?
Pascal
What do you call "reticulated" what effect would that have on a piece of jewelry?
Reticulation is both a technique and a surface finish/texture.
Normally the word refers to a technique in which a metal sheet is
partially melted, without quite melting a surface skin or really
changing the large dimensions of the metal. That surface oxide skin
holds the sheet in mostly it’s shape, but moves around as the
underlying metal melts and flows a bit. The result is a deep texture
of surface wrinkles. The previous poster thought that the texture on
the purple gold looked somewhat like a reticulated texture. I believe
it is done by physically carving the surface with a cutting tool, not
by actually reticulating it. But the result, either way, is a
decorative surface texture.
Peter