Continue from Common Metals Used in Jewelry Making Part 1

Copper can be used for many jewelry applications. Because it oxidizes relatively quickly, it’s a good metal to try with patinas, and is also often enameled on. Some people believe that copper jewelry has health benefits, such as aiding people with arthritis pain, while others wear it for its rich, warm color. If copper jewelry has not been coated with something to prevent oxidation, it will need to be cleaned and/or polished frequently in order to keep it from turning green or black.

Brass is another non-precious metal that is often used in jewelry designs. It is an alloy metal and there are several different formulations for brass. It is sometimes sold shiny and other times with an oxidized “antique” finish.

Stainless Steel – steel, particularly stainless steel, is becoming popular as a jewelry metal. It is very hard, and melts at a very high temperature. In fact, a lot of jewelry tools are made from steel. I haven’t worked with steel very much except a bit in wire form. Memory wire made from steel, which is sold in coils for making bracelets, necklaces, and rings, is fun for stringing beads onto because it “remembers” its shape. Very thin steel wire can be used for weaving, knitting, or crocheting wire. Many metal artists are using steel sheet to fabricate designs as well, and mixing it with more traditional jewelry metals like silver and gold.

Platinum – of the commonly used metals in jewelry making, platinum is the hardest and the most expensive. I’ve personally never worked with it, so I don’t know much more than that. It has a lovely silver color and is popular for wedding and engagement rings, and high-end jewelry with precious stones such as diamonds.

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Buying jewelry can be confusing – there are so many metals used to make jewelry, and most people don’t know what the various metal names mean. I’ve created a list of some of the most commonly used metals for jewelry, and added a bit of information about each one. This is by no means a complete list, since *any* metal can be used to make jewelry, but it covers the metals I see being used most frequently in handmade jewelry.

Sterling silver is a commonly used form of silver in jewelry making. It consists of 92.5% pure silver alloyed with 7.5% other metals. In the United States, an alloy that is 92.5% silver can be called sterling silver, regardless of what the other 7.5% is; however, the standard alloy is 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper.

There are several non-standard alloys of sterling silver on the market today. These alloys are formulated using metals other than copper for some or all of the 7.5% that is not silver, and are usually intended to be more tarnish resistant than the standard silver-copper alloy.

One of these alloys is argentium sterling silver, which has a very small amount of germanium mixed with the copper. Argentium resists tarnish better than regular sterling silver, and in addition has some properties that (in my opinion) make it a better alloy to work with when doing torch work. It costs a bit more than regular sterling silver, because germanium is expensive — luckily for jewelry makers, the amount of germanium used is very small, so it isn’t a huge price difference.

Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver, which has not been alloyed with any other metals. It is softer than sterling silver, and therefore not suitable for certain jewelry applications, but it has a beautiful color and as a jewelry maker, I have to say it is wonderful to work with using a torch. Fine silver is a little bit more expensive than sterling silver, generally costing about as much as argentium silver.

Silver metal clay, which is sold under a few different brand names, is a form of fine silver in which ultrafine particles of silver are mixed with an organic binder, and can be worked on like clay (hence the name). Metal clay has to be fired, using either a kiln or a torch, and because the organic binder burns off during the firing process, it will shrink a bit when it is fired. How much shrinkage occurs depends a lot on the brand and variety of clay used. Once metal clay has been properly fired, the resulting metal is 99.9% pure silver – in other words, fine silver. It is more expensive than other types of silver, but allows designers many options for their creativity that would be far more labor intensive, if not impossible, using solid silver to start with. Jewelry designs made with metal clay often feature intricate textures and shapes. Metal clay is also available for some other metals, including gold and bronze.

Gold – 10k, 12k, 14k, 18k, and 22k are commonly used in jewelry. Gold jewelry is generally referred to by a number followed by “k” which stands for karat. The higher the number, the higher the actual gold content. 24k is pure gold, and like fine silver, is quite soft. Many people consider 14k gold to be the lowest gold content that should be used in fine gold jewelry. Higher karat golds, such as 18k and 22k, tend to have a richer gold color than lower karat alloys. They are also more expensive due to the higher actual gold content. The part of the gold that isn’t actual gold might be copper, zinc, silver, or other metals. There are many different alloys, resulting in a lot of color variation, from rose gold to green gold to white gold.

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