How did you break into gold?

Kim,

Just for interest.

In the old days in South Africa, we used to do a lot of work in 9ct
gold, which is a sort of standard gold used there. My partner and I
had a guy that would sell us ‘old gold’ at a good price. (He bought
it from rural pawn shops) It was awful stuff, red in colour and most
suspect.

Then we would take, say 100 grams of 9ct and melt it with 400 grams
of copper. This mixture, while molten, would be poured into a large
drum filled with water to make shot.

Then the shot was put into a stainless steel bowl and 70% strength
nitric acid was added until there was no reaction anymore. The
reaction is quite radical, giving off a yellow gas, (I forget the
name) that was rather nasty.

What remained looks exactly like coffee grounds, and when it was
mixed with boric acid powder and melted, was fine gold. Still, to be
on the safe side, we regarded that as 22ct and alloyed it as such.

That gave us a base line of purity and was better that using old
gold of suspect cartage.

This method also allowed us to acquire gold outside the draconian
laws that S.A. has concerning unwrought gold —and shafting the gold
cops was even better than nailing the tax man

Cheers, Hans Meevis
http://www.meevis.com

I thought that alloying your own material was the only way to go if
you wanted to make a good profit 

I would say, and I’m sure there will be divergent opinions, that in
a small scale shop investing the time and money (for equipment) to
alloy your own gold is a supreme waste of resources. Until you get
proficient at it you cannot be assured of quality. In this case
quality refers to more than specific legal fineness. It refers to
uniformity and freedom from manufacturing flaws which suck up your
time to correct.

Time is the essence of your business. You can spend hours days weeks
maybe months trying to perfect a technique to produce your raw
material or you can make a phone call to a trusted refiner and get
busy making your finished merchandise. And you won’t be surprised by
some defect popping up just as you’re polishing the piece.

You can spend hundreds to thousands for a rolling mill, crucibles,
melting torch, drawplates and so on and it’ll take considerable time
before you make back your investment. Or you could spend that same
money on tools that more directly enable you to produce NOW what it
is that you produce…finished jewelry.

Being a startup biz your focus should be, among others, to make
money short term. If you don’t make the necessary profit in the first
few months you will likely fail altogether. You can’t afford to wait
years for the profit that manufacturing your gold stock will
eventually net. Conserve your capital! Once you’ve reached a certain
level of volume it may pay to make the investment. But for now you
need turn. Make it, sell it, make more, sell more.

I say this from the perspective of experience. Both successful and
failure-ific. Keep your eye on the ball and the ball is profit. And
profit is a time sensitive thing.

All that was predicated on your statement that you are business
oriented. For someone who’s in it as a hobby its quite different.

Your dutch uncle,
neilthejeweler

Hi Cyndy - another helpful thing might be to go to your local pawn
shop and buy some dicarded gold wedding rings. Just saw through and
re-solder to get a feel for how gold solders differently from silver.
You can pretty much do this endlessly until you feel a bit more
confident soldering gold and then tackle other projects. Even if you
melt it, you can melt it down and re-use (although I probably
wouldn’t melt and re-use a ring you’ve re-sized a hundred times in
different spots - too much solder!) Just remember you need a much
smaller flame that can be concentrated on the part you’re soldering
(vs. silver, where everything needs to be brought up to temp.)
Soldering lots of silver can be a good foundation for soldering
anything. To quote Maertz, (albeit about platinum) “It’s not hard,
it’s just different!” Don’t worry, you’ll be fine! Best, Holly,
Boston. (Soon to be Houston - 2 weeks!)

Hi Kim, A few quick thoughts:

-Another source of bi-metal is Hauser and Miller.
-Another option is kum boo----fusing very thin gold sheet to the
surface
-I don’t do my own alloying—never have—I see it as an option,
but not a necessity.

Cynthia Eid

Not as unlikely to get gold pieces at a good price as you would
think. Last month I got 23dwt of 14k at various yard sales. People
get rid of everything they don’t like anymore. Even gold. I don’t
find that much every month but I do get 2 to 3 oz. a year. Has
nothing to do with where I live. I can yard sale anywhere and find
gold. We as jewelers can spot it from across the yard. I never
bargain, always pay the price asked. Believe it or not, most of the
time it is less than a dollar.

when I was a student at a local university metals program i found
myself working silver and enjoyiing exploring my creativity. however
when I did get lucky and sold a piece I was always alittle uneasy
that if i did the math and figured out how much i made an hour it
was kind of a joke. especially when i did a one of a kind and had to
figure things out on the fly. my instructor Jon Fix would say’ well
just price it as if you had made it the second time…after working
out all the kinks.’ still i found myself working for very little. I
was scared to death of paying so much for gold.

then something interesting happened. i was working for a guitar
maker in california for the summer while attending the revere academy
for some classes. the guitar maker was working on a guitar for Jerry
Garcia. he only used the best stuff the earth had to offer in terms
of materials. why? because the guitar had to travel, stay in tune in
a large arena that was bound to heat up as the night progressed, and
most of all be an extrordinary work of art. this guitar maker Doug
Irwin got me a job making 1200 brass pins for the Jerry Garcia band
tour in the early 90s. he said that if I could make those pieces well
for 6$ each that the metal Gods would grant me the money to work in
gold. it is a form of alchemy, transformation of the maker. jumping
into the fire to be reborn a new. in this case, turning brass into
gold.

when I returned to the east coast and back to my university, my
instuctor was pissed. he said that I could not make that production
work in the school while other students were around…so i
would work from 10pm until 6am for 4 weeks straight in the schools
studio. I worked my ass off, got the job done and got paid 6$ for
each of the 1200 pieces…do the math…still working for
nothing.

yes i bought gold with the money that i made. i made one little gold
vessel with a diamond in the lid for a local show. a lady saw the
piece and ordered 3 of them. i did the math and discovered that by
working in gold i increased my earning 10 fold. my back and hands did
not hurt as much and i fell in love with the material. the other
posts have already explained why. i felt like other metals just did
not pay me enought to uses them. gold is worthy of my time. I have
beem a gold smith ever since. it was like betting on the horses, i
was the horse, and the bet was large. but the race was alittle fixed
because people has a percieved value for the material and knew that
it cost more.

my advice…get ahold of some, take your time, know it is worthy of
the exploration and TAKE THE TRIP. God bless jerry garcia and doug
irwin because i am still tripp’in from the summer of '91

If you only wear gold, there is one incentive.

My first ring was made from 14K “Rose” gold sheet. I sawed a strip
of sheet; hand stamped a design on it, soldered it and rounded it up.
Then polished it. I still wear the ring. I have made the ring is
Sterling, as well. It sells better in gold.

That ring was made “after a fashion” to emulate a Rose gold ring I
inherited from my grandfather when I was 14. I have always been
partial to rose and yellow gold.

Fortunately when I started making jewelry gold was less costly than
it is today. But, even if it weren’t I probably would have made the
ring anyway.

More people buy silver jewelry than gold from me. But that isn’t the
norm.

Gold can be a great accent on Sterling Reticulated pieces. Either
Red or Yellow gold or both.

Start with a small piece of gold, add it to Sterling jewelry in
small increments and see it is works with your style of jewelry in
your market.

Yvonne

www.studio-tours.com

Nice post Yvonne.

I can concur; adding gold accents to sterling pieces provides an
opportunity for customers who may be “gold shy” to have a piece with
that lauded metal in it with out the high price if it were all gold.
I also love rose gold and I love to have a rose piece with embedded
yellow wire accents or visa versa.

How did I get into gold? After getting over my initial apprehension
and fear that I would ruin this expensive metal I bought some wire
and inlaid it in an engraved silver pendant as a gift for a loved
one.

Versillee