I am wondering if anyone would be willing to share a 22K gold recipe that they have found to be the best. I am preferably looking for one with the colour of 24K, something that will make 14K or even 18K look pale. I want it to be able to be welded without the use of solder easily aswell. Of coarse it is beneficial if it is as hard as possible aswell, I’ve heard they can be about as hard as sterling in the harder alloys.
Thanks for any tips,
ArgentumMoon
Years ago at a SNAG conference I saw a presentation by gentleman who had pioneered the use of micro alloys. He had a 24k alloy that added other elements to the remainder of 999 fine gold, leaving it technically 24k but much harder than conventional pure gold.
I found an article here https://www.cibjo.org/high-strength-alloys-breathing-new-life-into-24k-jewellery/
As I recall, he also had a solder that would be used with it—a true solder (rather than brazing) in that it flowed at about 600F, way below brazing temps—that would not anneal the piece.
It’s interesting.
Andy
I use 33 grains of silver and 11 grains of copper per 1 troy ounce of gold. This is the classic recipe from Kulicke-Stark (Jewelry Arts in NYC, which seems to be the turnstile for goldsmiths all over the place). I do granulation and fusing all the time, and I love the color and workability of the metal. If you need hard, say for findings, use 20K or multiply the weight of whatever gold you want to harden by .9 (I’m really bad with numbers, so try this on a small sample) and add that much copper to your 22K alloy. I picked this tip up at MJSA this year, but haven’t tried it yet so YMMV. Adding copper with no silver seems to preserve the color better than the 20K alloy, which is more of a green gold and is not to my taste. HTH,
Makena
Would more copper for hardness in the 22K itself, say 22 grains of silver to 22 grains of copper, or even 27 grains of copper to 17 grains of silver to one ounce of gold significantly effect the fusing capabilities or the colour?
If you want to get into playing with alloys, search for “Comprehensive alloy list” either here or online–I can’t remember where I picked this up, but it’s a spreadsheet with a ton of different alloy recipes. Bear in mind that the more copper you have, the harder it is to work with. Weird alloys could crack, not perform well, and not have matching solders. IMO you’re better off going with the tried and true recipes if you’re fusing and also not familiar with working in gold. The nice thing about the 22K recipe is that you can just melt your mistakes and roll out fresh sheet or wire. It’s great because you learn more from failures than successes, and there’s no financial penalty for the failures as long as you don’t contaminate the basic 22k recipe with a ton of solders or other impurities when working it.
Makena
Do you use a burnisher or a polishing wheel to polish 22K? What about .999 silver?
