Durability of 18k white gold vs palladium

Jewelry Discussion
1

i’d appreciate hearing your experiences with 18k white
gold/palladium alloy–how is it for durability compared to palladium
or platinum? also, are you happy with its color?

thanks,
bill

2

Bill- I’ve worked with them all. We mostly do platinum and now
paladium instead of white gold. The are really much more durable
than white gold and soooo much easier to set stones in. When we have
to do something in white gold we really piss and moan about it and
threaten to ban it from our studio.

White gold will wear out. Prongs will need to be retipped, shanks
rebuilt, etc. With platinum and paladium the metal will smear. The
prongs will spread and look flatter, but all you have to do is
reshape them. It’s still mostly all there, but will not wear away
like gold. For more info on paladium ask our friend Thresa Frye at
Tech Form Casting. She’s the real expert on it.

Jo

3

I don’t think that 18KW even compares to PLAT or PD. Being how it is
gold, it will wear faster the PLAT and PD. Also, it is harder to
engrave or bead set in WG. And the color really isn’t that great in
comparison. I have had 18KW More yellow than 14KW and sometimes it
is whiter. I don’t alloy my own gold so I am at the mercy of the
people who alloy it.

I would say that you will get a much better product w/PLAT or PD and
definately much less trouble.

Steven Cook

4 
From working palladium white golds I believe they do not transfer
like nickel based wg's. I think the palladium content hybridizes
the wear properties. Also, setting in palladium white gold will
not resemble setting in those hard nickel alloys.

If you want a nice, white color, ask for a high palladium content
alloy (greater than 12%).

If you must make the piece in white gold, you could do worse than
palladium bleached alloys. Personally I prefer the naturally white
noble metals for white jewelry but the customer ultimately decides.

Jason,
Casting House

5

This is the beginning of the end of (at least) nickel white gold,
perhaps 950palladium will overwhelm palladium white gold. Of course
by “the end” I mean in general preference, not utterly.

Between platinum, palladium, exotic pt sterling, traditional
sterling… all of which are natural white and very high purity, who
needs white gold at all? What advantage does white gold have over
these other options?

I have a couple customers who have in fact banned white gold from
their custom work. They go for 950Pd or 90/10Pt. They avoid 95Pt for
durability reasons as they see them. Folks do have concerns about
palladium and casting, but heck, white gold is a challenge to cast
too!

Daniel Ballard
www.pmwest.us