Firing Gold PMC with gold-filled

Jewelry Discussion
1

gold filled will melt at the temperature required to fire gold metal
clay…

you should be using 10 kt gold solder for attaching the parts plating
the soldering area with nickel, then gold or rhodium would solve the
greening problem, as would coating the back of the bracelet with a
sealant enamel- any of this requires an additional bench charge,
since the guy failed to tell you he couldn’t wear silver, yet bought
it in the first place. sealant is the cheapest way to go if you don’t
want to shuck out the cost of materials to repair if you made the
mistake of saying you would absorb the costs…of his failure to
inform you of his inability to wear certain metals… replacing the
pieces tu mentioned by fabricating with PMC/Art Clay is not as cost
effective as using the actual metals.

22kt gold pmc does not have coper added to alloy it…22kt yellow, or
coloured gold does, unless you pour your own…Sounds like a lot of
work to fix something he knew was going to react with his body
chemistry anyway.

I’m unclear as to where the battery is- in a watch maybe… but. the
battery is probably sealed in a stainless bezel, no? It is more
likely the guy can’t deal with copper given his body chemistry. knew
it and bought it anyway…so no silver is going to work except using
fine silver pmc, formed and perhaps cold connected onto the proposed
plated ends of your bracelet…

I would personally coat the thing with marine varnish or a sealant
available from jewelers supply houses and be done with it…too much
time for too little a return…since he failed to give you critical
about his reaction to silver… and bought it in the
first place.

RER

2 
gold filled will melt at the temperature required to fire gold
metal clay

Thanks for your prompt reply! I sort of figured that I would ruin
the gold-filled, but I wasn’t sure…

the guy failed to tell you he couldn't wear silver, yet bought it
in the first place.

In hindsight, I remember him showing me his “old” jewelry items
…wanting me to do some repairs… and all the pieces looked like
they had been unearthed after years underground! That should have
been a clue, but it didn’t register in my brain. I just passed it off
as his jewelry being “old”. NOW I can see why! What really blew me
away was how bad even the gold-filled wire weaving looked after he
wore it a couple of times! That’s why I think there is a galvanic
corrosive action going on (battery-like). In other words: his body
sweat is the acid and the two different metals are the plates of a
“battery”.

PMC/Art Clay is not as cost effective as using the actual metals.

…except that I do have a suitable kiln, but no access to lost wax
casting until myabe November/December…but are you saying that the
PMC would be a poor color match? I don’t think that would be a
problem because of where the ends are (under the wrist) (this is a
cuff bracelet) I can post a picture, if you would like…)

plating the soldering area with nickel, then gold or rhodium would
solve the greening problem,

I took two classes… on one bath plating and one on pen plating…
last year and the results, to me at least, wereless than desireable.
The kit they used was purchased from Rio and these two guys seemed
to know what they were doing, but the plating was dull and
un-appealing, even after a quick polish. The pen plating was even
worse!!! That turned me off to this sort of thing and I put this at
the bottom of my list of solutions for the problem I’m having.
Perhaps they didn’t know as much as they thought they did because
they were charging twice as much for the 24K gold solution as for
the 14K, saying that it had twice as much gold!!! They didn’t like it
when I told them that they were wrong!..that both bottles of
solution had the SAME amount of gold in them!!! (I didn’t do this in
front of the class, but on the side after class…)

I would personally coat the thing with marine varnish or a sealant
available from jewelers supply houses and be done with it..too
much time for too little a return..since he failed to give you
critical about his reaction to silver... and bought it
in the first place.

Wouldn’t the coating wear off quickly? I tried automotive polish
already, but that did nothing…

Once again, I sure do appreciate your input and will consider all
your ideas… Thanks!

HD