Working with palladium

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hello all, I am thinking to work with palladium, and make
combinations with silver. I know that for soldering palladium to
palladium, there are solders available. But does any body know if it
is possible to solder this material to silver or gold? What type of
flux is necessary? Do you get fire scale on this material and how can
this be removed.

I would be clad if someone can share his experience in working with
this material.

Greetings
Martin Niemeijer
Ndesign@wishmail.nl

2

Dear all, Who can and will help me. I want to work with palladium but
missing some knowledge ( on this material everything).

I have several questions about pure palladium and the commercial 950
palladium alloy.

-Can palladium be soldered? Is there special palladium solder for
it?

-Can it be soldered to silver, by use of silver solders?

-Can it be soldered to gold and its alloys, by use of gold solders?

  • Is there a special need for oxidation protection when heating up.

  • Is special heat treatment necessary? Can it be annealed.

-Do you need special fluxes for palladium?

-Can it be pickled or do I need special chemicals for cleaning.

-I have understood that palladium had a bit of gray color. If you
alloy palladium with silver does the color gets more gray or does it
get lighter.

-Does anyone have a melting diagram of palladium mixed with silver?

Any help with this item will be much appreciated

Greetings from the Netherlands

Martin Niemeijer

N design
compositions in precious metal
Rieteweg 10 8041 AK, Zwolle
Netherlands

info@ndesign.nl

Phone/fax +31 38 750 1258
mobile +31 6 518 315 76

3

Martin you will find Palladium to be a “sticky” metal to work with.
It is a lot like pure platinum in that it is very hard to make a
chip when you saw file or cut it. Palladium tends to drag or smear
rather than cut cleanly. But it is easy to form and very soft in its
pure state. I cannot comment on the 950 Pd alloy as I have not had a
chance to work with it.

    -Can palladium be soldered? Is there special palladium solder
for it?

Yes , use the lower temperature end (1100C-1400C) of the standard
platinum solders as they are mostly palladium anyway

    -Can it be soldered to silver, by use of silver solders?

Yes

    -Can it be soldered to gold and its alloys, by use of gold
solders?

Yes

    - Is there a special need for oxidation protection when
heating up.

It forms a beautiful blue oxide layer that interferes with soldering
if you do not use any flux so you need to use a good quality
soldering flux but nothing special

    - Is special heat treatment necessary? Can it be annealed.

Yes it can be annealed but there are no heat treatments I know of

    -Do you need special fluxes for palladium?

No

    -Can it be pickled or do I need special chemicals for
cleaning.

I use citric acid

    -I have understood that palladium had a bit of gray color. If
you alloy palladium with silver does the color gets more gray or
does it get lighter.

Lighter, silver is the whitest of all metals adding it to any other
metal tends to make for a lighter colored alloy

Jim Binnion

James Binnion Metal Arts
Phone (360) 756-6550
Toll Free (877) 408 7287
Fax (360) 756-2160

@James_Binnion
Member of the Better Business Bureau