Gold Inlay in Sterling Silver Question

[Christopher Malouf]

I gotta make a few bracelets that will require gold wire inlay in sterling to outline the scroll and borders.

I will use annealed 24k gold but am considering argentium silver (16 ga) as it is a little harder than sterling.

Has anyone done this and/or does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank-you in advance .... Chris

 

[pilkguns]

I have inlayed 24k into aluminum gun frames and even 18k green gold, make your undercuts a little deeper than normal I would say, and space your teeth a little further apart and I think yuo will be fine.

 

[Brian Marshall]

Argentium silver is usually delivered annealed... The hardness comes with heat treatment AFTER all work - engraving, chasing, stonesetting, and bending or forming is done.

I suppose you could harden it (at least as hard as it gets, which is still not very hard) beforehand and do your inlay on flat sheet? But then you'll have to anneal to do your forming/bending. I would bet that some of your inlays may come loose at this point...

Those Argentium bracelets that we have engraved with inlay accents are delivered to us from the company already formed and hardened, and we just charge them more to work them "in the round", so to speak.

Brian Marshall
Stockton Jewelry Arts School
B.P. Marshall Studios
Stockton, CA USA 95209
209-477-0550
instructor@jewelryartschool.com

 

[Weldon47]

Chris,

Watch out for the gold turning loose if you inlay first and then bend the bracelet. Depending upon how involved the inlay is, it might be better if you cut and prepped all the inlay sites, and then inlayed the gold after the bending is done. Though gold is very ductile, there is definitely the possibility of the inlay pocket stretching a little during the forming process and therefore enlarging (ever so slightly) the cavity for the gold which may fall out!
You can do it; for best results, make sure you do it in the right order!

Hope that helps,
Weldon

 

[Christopher Malouf]

Weldon,

You hit on exactly what I was driving at with this question. Wide and spaced undercuts (what Scott suggested) is definitely what I intend to do. I'll be drilling small holes all the way through as well and after the bracelet is formed, these holes will offer an access point to weld the gold from the backside to give the customer a little added protection. Getting the gold in the groove without making a mess of the silver and having some comfort that it stays while forming is definitely the tough part.

I think heat treatment is the answer ... something I didn't think of.

Brian,

I make all my bracelets using annealed sterling. Just as I get it. The gauge is heavy enough that I don't harden after. I'm not a jeweler either so this is far from my area of knowledge. Venturing into uncharted territory here so I am grateful for your input.

I'll probably use argentium so I don't have to deal with firescale. Are you spring hardening the silver?

I figured I could use a simple procedure of air-cooling to bring the hardness up to about half hard. That might give me the workability I need to pound in the gold and have it stay without disfiguring the silver too much. From there I could block sand out any dents and bring the gold flush. Cut my filigree then shade the scroll.

At that hardness, would I still be able to form it around a mandrel without it too much trouble?

Thanks again,

Chris

btw ... I admire your patience to engrave these "in the round". I try to avoid that.

 

[Brian Marshall]

The inlay technique is based on forcing a soft metal into a pocket or channel made in much harder metal. Used on guns it is the cleanest method, and guarantees that heat warpage and firescale problems that would come from soldering will not occur. Same with knife bolsters - no heat damage/firescale/warping, and expensive handle materials aren't endangered.

Generally, from long, long, experience as a metalsmith - I'd recommend against designing a piece of sterling of any "species" or any thickness that required a "cold" inlay technique. Why design potential problems into a piece when you don't need to?

What you are trying to do in this case is to inlay a metal that does not have a substantial enough difference between it and the base you are inlaying into. And then, you are going to subject this already inherently weak bond to the stresses of bending. No "ordinary" inlay is ever subjected to bending after the inlaying process is completed. The aluminum frame that Scott mentions working on - is not a piece that gets bent afterwards... at least you'd hope not... and there is a considerable difference in hardness between fine gold and the aluminum alloy used in gun frames.

While gold into silver inlay can be done, and I've done it - I'd avoid it if at all possible. Use cold connections if you don't want to learn to solder. Rivets, screws, tabs, or interlocks for examples.

Those bracelets that I mentioned: the ones that we engrave and inlay for a company we work for on a "wholesale" basis - were poorly thought out. They arrived with stones already set in tubes/bezels, and then they decided to add the gold accents as an afterthought...

In order to work around their design flaw we had to choose cold inlay as the method to add the gold - because the stones that are already in place will not withstand the heat of soldering.

Normally, at least if I had designed them - the gold accents would have been soldered in place at the same time as the tube/bezel settings. Before the amethyst, garnets, and citrines were set.

But since it wasn't done that way, and they were willing to pay the extra cost of inlay - we did it. They paid dearly for it. If this design does well in the marketplace, I will bet you that in the future they incorporate the accents into the fabrication BEFORE it gets to me. Much cheaper. Better product too.

I'm sorry folks, but I have never come to love the Argentium alloy for fabrication or soldering - and I think that it's only OK for engraving - not excellent. The stuff sags at soldering temps, the solders made to match it are not yet ideal to match the temps needed, and it will fracture if overheated. And then there's the extra cost of the material itself, keeping a separate area to work on it, separate buffs, etc... (You do the same for platinum, but you get a LOT more money back for your trouble)

Life is too short for me to be wasting the extra time with it, unless I'm paid well over my normal rate. I DO like the silver/platinum alloys, but there the price tag is a much larger obstacle. And again, it is no better suited to the inlay technique that we are discussing.

If you absolutely have to put some fine gold accents into silver that will then be bent - using the inlay method - stick with "dots" or short wire lines. Large sheet inlays and long wires will definitely loosen up in the bending process. (More so, in Andrews Biggs' case since the GRS tool he is using puts a compound bend in - in two directions at the same time.)

Finding the "half-hard" temperature for your Argentium is gonna be a matter of some experimentation. Probably YOURS! The alloy has been "improved" several times since its' release, and I don't know that there is much call for "half-hard" sheet or wire stock? Or treating it to make it that way yourself... Maybe Cynthia would know, I'll email her tonight.

In a nutshell, I'd recommend learning to solder if you want foolproof results combining these particular two metals - gold in/on the surface of a silver cuff style bracelet. Easier, guaranteed results every time.


Brian Marshall
Stockton Jewelry Arts School
B.P. Marshall Studios
Stockton, CA USA 95209
209-477-0550
instructor@jewelryartschool.com

 

[Brian Marshall]

Not feeling too smart... almost went to bed before this idea hit me!

Last weekend I taught a private student the Korean Keum-Boo technique on sterling. Forgot all about it for this kind of application! Probably because it's an overlay technique, not "inlay".

You'd have to futz around with it a bit, but it might work - if you applied it AFTER the bracelet was bent.

The disadvantages would be that it would be very thin 24K gold, almost like gold leaf, and because you have to deplete the surface to fine silver - the bracelet would be dead soft. You would also lose the "bright" cuts if you engraved it before bending. They'd be dull from the fine silver left on the surface after depletion..

However, if you bent it in a former similar to the GRS former that was mentioned earlier - you would have a substantially stiffer product than you would get from a "flat" bend of annealed material around a mandrel. Might be stiff enough out of 16 guage?

And if you engraved a pattern that was not dependant on flashy cuts to attract attention? Say something like Andrews? With black background? Maybe...

The only book I know of dedicated to the technique, if you are interested is: "Keum-Boo on Silver" by Celie Fago - ISBN 1-929565-1109

You can also Google it. I'm sure CLB's description and explanation will be first to come up.

You do need a torch for depletion. No soldering required. Post the results if you try it...

Brian

 

[Christopher Malouf]

Brian,

I think 850 degrees is for about half hard. Thank-you for taking the time to go through some of this. I gotta go the jewelry store today to discuss this project with them. I've got full access to their equipment so soldering, laser welding, heat treatment etc. is not completely out of my reach. This particular job is a challenging project and that's the one reason why I haven't turned it down.

Yes I've done inlay but only in carbon steel and stainless steel .. never in a soft metal that needs to be bent. I am greatly underestimating the hardness (or softness) of the silver and how much harder it will be after hardening.

I'll get back on this thread later after I've had more of an in depth conversation with the guys at the shop.

The harder anyone tells me this is, the more likely I am to give it a try.

Thank-you again,

Chris

btw ... I'll research Keum-Boo however I don't think it will be practicable for this particular project. My inlays will not be very wide or extensive, they will only highlight the scroll backbone.

 

[Brian Marshall]

I do this stuff for a living, so I look at it differently than some of the "art" people on the forum. I think in terms of dozens, not a couple pieces. Inlay of any kind is an exacting procedure - and you should be able to solder a gold border or piece of sheet onto a silver bracelet in less than a quarter of the time it takes to inlay one...

If you are gonna inlay the wire for the backbone of the scroll you will pretty much have to depend on on your channel and undercuts to hold it. Burs will simply flatten out in silver. Like I said, it can be done, and I have done it. Costs more than inlay into steel. Can't guarantee that the customer won't bend and tweak a bracelet enough to make it fall out.

In jewelry it's usually only the "look" they are after. 99% of the stores don't care how you got there. I get lots of "designs" from stores that are not practical to produce or economically feasible even IF you can do the job. I turn those down and take the jobs that make more money with less headaches.

It's all about the time it takes (simplicity), the stability of the end product, satisfying the customer, and getting the money as quickly as possible for me. I did the beans and rice thing 38 years ago... I like to eat a little better these days.

Brian

 

[Weldon47]

Chris,

Though I probably fall more on the art side of things rather than in the production category, I would agree with Brian that (within this genre, jewelry), the customer typically doesn't care so much about how it's done but that it gets done and that the end result looks good! In regard to firearms, soldering on an overlay/inlay is not viewed as acceptable by either the majority of engravers or the aficionados who patronize that segment of the engraving world.
For the project at hand it would be a lot easier to add gold to a bracelet by means other than inlaying. If you wanted, you could do a "fused" gold inlay. This is done by melting gold into the cavity (sort of like soldering) and could be a useful technique if the area isn't overly large. This would end up looking like an inlay but shouldn't fall out of the pocket. Sawing out the overlay and soldering it on is probably the quickest and least frustrating way to go. It would be a bummer to have an inlay fall out of a bracelet after delivery to the client.

Weldon

 

[Christopher Malouf]

Weldon,

All of the advice makes complete sense. I just wanna cover all the bases and it looks like you guys have helped me get there. I'm not a production guy either ... never was. In my previous life as a systems guy, I was always the guy that came in, set up the network or migrated server operating systems and then left it for the permanent administrators. When the challenge was over, I was out the door.

I want to deliver exactly what I envision and have it withstand the test of time without driving me insane trying to make it. I know how I get there is immaterial to the customer. I just don't want anything to leave here that has me second guessing. I'd rather overwork it and be absolutely sure. Same philosophy that applied to my obsessive approach to building network server systems applies here as well. The reason I'm not working in the tech field now is that technology moves so fast that in a year, there is never any evidence that I was even there. Not what I call much of a legacy after I'm dead and buried. I guess I'd prefer to have my name on an over-engineered heirloom.

Brian,

You got me beat by about 34 years!! Since you've told me that the cold inlay method into hardened silver will work and you've done it ... I'm satisfied. Knowing that it's been done and can be done along with some professional advice on how helps me immensely.

I'm gonna go with an undercut trough with evenly spaced holes drilled through to the back for soldering for the scroll backbone. The scroll is not complex as I intend to filigree the background. I think I've got one of my filigree bracelets posted in the gallery. For the outer border, I'll just solder the gold. Heat treatment thoughout the process of course as you suggest.

Yep, I'll take the difficult path until I figure out what I can get away with and what I can't.

I feel much more comfortable proceeding with this little project.


Thank-you very much again,

Chris