Hi, I am trying to help a fledgling jeweler from England to find a
source over there for 14K (or any other karat for that matter)
goldfill wire. Sometimes in England it is known as "rolled gold"
wire. Any help would be appreciated from jeweler’s “across the pond”!
Thanks,
Suzanne
Suzanne
You are most likely to find 9K or 18K here but I have not seen
goldfill in any of my catalogues. I am not sure that ‘rolled gold’
is the same product, I suspect a much lower percentage of gold and a
different manufacturing process. The most common gold coloured base
metal construction here is plating (I’ll wash my mouth out now).
Andy Parker, Agate House Lapidary
Ulverston, Cumbria, England
@Andy_Parker
Tel: 01229 584023
Rolled gold as far as I am aware is a thin layer of carat gold
wrapped around a bronze core, here in Ireland a company called J&Z
Blackman in Dublin produce an excellent variety of stone set bangles
in 1/10th and 1/20th rolled gold, these range from 3mm wire bangles
to 12mm half engraved or rope bangles. We have been selling them for
years and they have a good resistance to wear, we have had bangles in
for repair that were over 30 years old with the finish still perfect.
Gold plate on the other hand has a much thinner layer of gold which
wears much quicker, just like a wash really.
Neil KilBane
Longford
Ireland.
Andy, Rolled gold plate is the same as gold filled except that the
gold layer is thinner. Both are base metal to which a thin layer og
gold is bonded to each side. Jerry in Kodiak
Dear Andy, Thanks so much for taking the time to reply to my inquiry!
Yes, I know that your karats are different as you can have 9K there
and we cannot go below 10K.
Rolled gold is exactly the same thing as goldfill and is made by
actually laminating gold to a base metal thru heat and pressure as
opposed to (gasp!) plating.
One of most famous wirewrappers in this century was an English
gentleman named Oxley. He had many wireworkers trained under him
when WWII broke out and he worked with a skeleton crew until the war
was over. He died in the fifties I believe, but his family has found
photos of many of his works and given them to “The Wire Artist
Jeweler” magazine out of Ontario, Canada and they have published a
few. He certainly was a master craftsman. His advertisement says he
worked in “rolled gold”. Here in the States, we have renamed it
goldfill.
Thanks again so much for your help and if you have a source for the
rolled gold, please let me know! Suzanne
The firm “Manchester Minerals”, in Stockport carry that sort of
stuff. Whether they have exactly what your friend wants I don’t know
though. Another tack would be to look at the adverts at the back of
a magazine called “Crafts”. This is a straightforward high-street
newsagent monthly mag, nothing fancy, mostly quilting and stencilling
and suchlike, but lots of adverts for more useful stuff (not that I’m
running down the quilters and stencillers, just not my thing!). Of
course, there’s also Yellow Pages…
Kevin (NW England, UK)