Roller printing white gold or palladium?

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hello. I am working with a couple who I am helping to make their own
wedding bands. They want a white metal and I discussed with them
silver, 18K white gold and palladium. The woman wants a simple band
ring that is first textured by roller printing with a steel rolling
mill. Someone told me that 18K white doesn’t work well for this. Does
palladium? I would like to give this couple a bit more info before
they make some decisions.

2

Wendy,

Both 18K palladium white gold and 950 palladium would work for roller
printing / wrapping and soldering a band. Both metals are very soft
and malleable. Cost wise they would be similar. 950 palladium would
be whiter than the 18k palladium white gold.

Paul D. Reilly

3

Palladium should texture fine in a rolling mill, it is not much
harder than silver. Some white gold alloys are OK, it depends a lot
on nickel content and the older white gold alloys used silver
instead.

Nick

4

Hi Wendy,

I have had good success rollerprinting 18k gold and palladium alloy
and 14k gold and palladium alloy from Imperial Smelting.

Doug

5 
Palladium should texture fine in a rolling mill, it is not much
harder than silver. Some white gold alloys are OK, it depends a lot
on nickel content and the older white gold alloys used silver
instead.

Pure palladium is as you say not much harder than sterling silver
but the new 950 palladium alloys are. They come in at about 250
Vickers when fully hard and 175 when annealed. That is in the same
range as some of the nickel white golds.

Jim

James Binnion
@James_Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts

360-756-6550