1. Due to the huge increase in customer demand for platinum jewelry, more and more small shops are needing to add platinum jewelry design and manufacture to their in-house services in order to stay viable. Completing jobs on time and under budget with minimal expense and with the least amount of down time has always been a hurdle for the smaller shops. Adding platinum production comes with its own set of additional hurdles…or so I was led to believe. (more…)

Despite what you may think, several companies around the world are setting gemstones in waxes and casting them successfully.

The economic benefit of this process is readily evident. If you can set stones in wax and can cast with the stones in place, the stone-setting costs become more competitive with products from countries with lower wage rates.

Techniques for casting with gemstones (CWG) differ somewhat from the usual casting doctrines, so in-house experimentation is required. But the payoff is worth the effort.

This article deals with tested, proven techniques that have evolved over the past few years. Most manufacturers who do casting have the equipment required to properly perform CWG. However, model makers and casting and wax departments will be required to work together and share information for the process to be effective. (more…)

Jewelry brought in for repair reflects the increasingly competitive marketplace for inexpensive fine jewelry. With care, however, you can repair it and keep your customer happy.

A word of caution: The procedures shown here represent standard practices commonly used by jewelers across the country. Nonetheless, working with acids, solvents, torches, sharp tools, spinning tools, etc. can be hazardous. Learn about potentially harmful procedures and take the appropriate steps to protect yourself. (more…)

Not so long ago, on a very busy day, a man asked me to mend his wife’s wedding ring, a tapered bold band with a crack in the shank. I have to admit I neglected our normal take-in procedure and didn’t examine the ring thoroughly before writing up the repair ticket. (more…)

With recent high and currently uncertain precious metal prices, many manufactures who cast using the lost wax process are turning to non-precious, copper based alloys to produce high quality casting. Similarly, many costume manufacturers are beginning to look closely at the possibility of moving from white metal spin casting to lost wax casting for greater quality and strength in their product. (more…)

In 1986, when Ricardo Basta Eichberg decided to begin casting platinum, he tried to learn all he could about the white metal and its properties-and quickly came up empty. (more…)

By casting diamond jewelry with stones already set, US manufacturers save not only time and money but also sales.

No one bothered to tell department store quality inspector Bill Hoefer about the secret new weapon that American jewelry makers are counting on to stem the tide of business lost to Asia. He just stumbled on its existence by accident. (more…)

Is model-making in the jewelry industry a vanishing art or an emerging science ? The answer varies depending on which industry segment you explore. The rapid development of technology to handle many parts of tool and die creation has, in many cases, replaced skilled toolmakers and modelmakers with trained technicians operating complex machinery . (more…)

For a growing number of jewelry manufacturers and retailers, pure Palladium is a new and viable alternative to white gold.

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