Just one more question…Will oxy/propane be hot enough for the higher
temperature solders?
Hi Sharon, Oxy/propane is certainly hot enough even to melt platinum,
adjust your torch so that the flame is light blue, there should be enough
oxygen to burn all of the propane completely. Flame will be the hottest
possible then for this mixture, and there will be no danger of
contaminating the platinum with carbon left by incomplete combustion.
Platinum is sensitive to rather a lot of elements when hot. Markus
About 1982 I was sizing a plat ring using a tungsten pick (bought from swest)
and I got it overheated. It ignited and very quickly combined with the platinum
with a huge sparkle <
The flame created with oxy-propane is hot enough to turn the pick into a
super-sparkler, and ruin the platinum to boot…
Hi Jeffrey, I have worked with the tungsten pick for more than 10 years,
and something like this never occured. And we use hydrogen/oxygen for
soldering now, which gives an even hotter flame than oxy/propane. I use to
burn away any flux on the pick when soldering gold (with the same flame),
so it will not adhere to the workpiece or pick up solder snippets. It gets
white hot, but no sign of igniting has ever occured. Perhaps you had
another material, mine is pure tungsten, no carbide. And - this morning I
did a series of tests in the workshop;-), but didn’t manage to burn or
melt or ignite the tungsten pick, but guess what happened when I held the
tip of my titanium tweezers into the flame! So most probably they sold
you a titanium pick, which is used for soldering because solder will not
adhere to it. But at those high temperatures - sparkle, sparkle… Markus
Hi Red,
Jim Zimmerman here. I know the feeling about going to work at
jewellery shop and telling someone you had a four degree to which he said
"I won’t hold it against you." I live in Canada but still do work in the
Detroit Metro Area four days a week. We still get grads coming in for
starting positions and they know next to nothing and not justfrom my old
school either. We have four or five colleges that offer jewellery or
metals as a major and one Grad school offering a MFA. The grad school is no
better than the rest. I went to exhibit called messengers of modernism
which also had two student work on exhibit. They charge me four dollars
entrance fee I asked for a refund. It was that bad. The modern art was
of the fifties and sixties and was the stuff produce by there grads then
and which has been gathering dust on a shelf somewhere in the school since
then. Necklaces shaped like question marks and ring pushing the evelope
on size. Most of it using artistic codes to baffle the on looker. If
there hadn’t been a little card next to it explaining why it was good you
would be completely lost. This compound art of the colleges seems to be
almost completely seperated from what happening in the industry. The
professors have written a manifesto that says that we are the only one who
know jewellery design is. They seem to be passing onto there students
quite effectively when you got out of school you thought you had a real
good handle on being a jeweller, the same way I did. And for compound
jewellers it was probable true. I shure the girl that produce 12 soap
dish ring think so. The ring are almost the size of real soap dishes with
peices of real soap mounted in them like stones. I’m not exactly shure
why she bothered putting shanks on them, they were nice little scultures
on there own. The other kid exhited a collection of found objects non of
witch he had made himself. He then packaged them in in plastic bags and
stapeled them to the wall with little cards explaining what his idea was.?
I asked a teacher why they didn't teach more of what was needed at the
bench. He answere " We’er not training people to become repair jeweller,
they can learn that in six months. We are training designers." I said “
Ya, who for instance have you ever placed in the jewellery industry or
hollow ware industry.” To which she answered by changing the subject.
The German schools have older traditions and link between the industry
and the class room. They are required to work at the bench in a real
firm while still going to school. Rare is the visit by a class to a good
shop in the Detriot area from any of the colleges. And it’s not like we
haven’t offered. The college teacher seem to want to protect there
compounds from ??? I still go for open house and look at what been done by
the students, not much has changed since 1975. Hmmmm.
Jim @Zimmerman
Just a note on the platinum-tungsten pick thing. Keep in mind that
tungsten is the metal that they use for the filaments in light bulbs. It
has a high melting temperature for sure, but just as with light bulbs,
with continued use it will tend to vaporize with a big pop. If you have
ever seen a burnt-out light bulb, the black coating on the inside is
tungsten that was vaporized by overheating.
@Marshall_Jones
Jeffery, Everyone should do what works for them. As a rule we charge $70.00
per dwt. for a finished cast platinum peice, $120.00 per dwt. for a
fabricated platinum peice (prices are wholesale and do not include setting
charges). But when quoting over the phone or giving a quick estimate,
doubling the finished 14k price seems to get you close enough, ( of course
we usually estimate after weighing waxes). Here is an example; a 5 dwt. 14k
ring set with a few melee and an average center stone would run about
$225.00 to $250.00 wholesale, the same ring in platinum would price out
around $625.00. But quoting, perhaps over the phone, I probably would have
said, it will be at least $500.00, we will give you a more accurate
estimate after the wax.
My point really was not to underestimate. I too have lost my shirt, I have
found our margins are smaller on platinum peices, people tend to freak out
when they find out how much it costs.
Mark P.
I never have heard the greatest metal in the world be called weird haha. My
name is Jurgen J. Maerz and I am the Manager of Technical Education for the
Platinum Guild International ,USA. With interest I have been reading all
the posts about Platinum. Let me assure you all that there ia a great
danger of contamination in working with Platinum and that is NOT over
rated. Carbons as well as Hydro Carbons will contamiante Pt. So if you use
a Borax and heat Pt to above 1500 C it will enter the grain boundries of
the metal and cause imbrittlement. Charcoal soldering blocks are a great
sorce of contamination as is a rolling mill and a drawing plate. Metal
flakes from a previous operation can be worked into the surface of Pt and
when one anneals it can cause permanent damage. Also metals in a file can
be cause of contamination, so I advise that you use a seperate set of files
for working with Platinum. Many of these surface contaminations can be
avoided by placing the Platin jewelry into a warm solution of 10% Nitric
acid for about 10 minutes before any annealing, welding, brazing or
soldering operation. I can be reached at the Platinum Guild International
at 714 760 8279. The Platinum Hotline is 714 760 8882 and if you need more
or technical help with Platinum, fax your request to me on your
company letter head at 714 760 8780 Thank you and have a platinum day