Best metal for clasps

We manufacture 18 k diamond jewelry, we use 18 K white gold spring
alloy for the clasps, after a while the tongue (the locking part)
losses the spring and does not work properly, and pulls out when
given a tug. How can one treat the part, we also heat treat the
plate and forge it to get the spring. Presume it is the heat applied
to solder which brings the metal back to it’s original state?

James your help sought on this.
Khushroo K

We manufacture 18 k diamond jewelry, we use 18 K white gold spring
alloy for the clasps, after a while the tongue (the locking part)
losses the spring and does not work properly 

It has to be 18k nickel alloy. Design is also important. Level of
compression should not exceed limit of elasticity.

Leonid Surpin

It has to be 18k nickel alloy. Design is also important. Level of
compression should not exceed limit of elasticity. 

Hold the phone, what about people who react to nickel?

One of the reasons I mention this is that the suppliers in Oz aren’t
producing nickel alloys.

Forget making these alloys yourself, nickel in Australia, is badly
priced… even if you can source it.

Regards Charles A.

Hold the phone, what about people who react to nickel? 

Fear of nickel alloys is a classical example of throwing proverbial
baby with bath water. They can be used safely, provided that jewellery
designed with understanding of materials used.

As far as issue of nickel in Australia, - well that is what happens
when bureaucrats are writing rules on technical implementation.
Remember, - camel is a horse designed by a committee. Camel which
cannot live in desert because it needs a lot of water and cannot
tolerate heat, - is camel redesigned by a government committee.

Leonid Surpin

Weren’t we talking about the tongue inside of a box clasp?

M’lou

I heard that the camel being designed by a government committee
still isn’t off the drawing board because the bureaucrats were too
busy making tea in one room and red tape in another.

I heard that the camel being designed by a government committee
still isn't off the drawing board because the bureaucrats were too
busy making tea in one room and red tape in another. 

And even when the design is finished and approved and ready to enter
production, it will never happen, because in Congress, one of the
political parties will block the funding until the other party agrees
to provisions in the funding bill which will serve to also remove
most of that pesky sand in the desert, (importing it to Silicon
valley, where they are under the mistaken impression that it’s the
needed starting ingredient for electronics,) while helping to pay
for the funding by selling off most of the desert’s oasis water to
India with the aim of supplementing water levels in the Ganges river
to replace dwindling Himalayan glacier reserves of water. Meanwhile,
prospective producers, anticipating funding that won’t come, are
stalled in talks with the labor unions who’s workers will build the
camels, because the unions, noting the custom specs on these camels,
want wages similar to those of high tech engineers building B2
bombers or F35 strike fighters, while the producers, noting that the
camels are just another form of livestock, will want to base wages on
those paid to Illegal immegrants picking melons in California. By the
time it’s all done, camel breeders in Egypt, needing to replace
tourism dollars lost due to recent political events, will ramp up
breeding and make those needing those camels an irresistable offer
(buy or we get the Saudi’s to withhold oil…) so that in the end,
instead of seperate funding for U.S. based jobs building custom
designed, though inoperable camels, a seperate division of the USDA
will tap a little of their livestock industry lobbying funds to fill
the need by buying imported standard camels which they will then
lease to the government agency that needed them. The lease will
feature accounting tricks to make it seem as though the camels are
leased from Haliberton under government contract, and that this
arrangement makes money for all, thus turning it into a cost saving
measure in the eyes of politicians, who will loudly claim credit for
the scheme at the next election cycle…

did I miss anything?

Peter