Welcome to the Gilt Trips podcast. I'm your host, Kendra Lockhart. As a goldsmith and
gemologist, I'll be speaking 24 carat on all things jewelry, metals, and gems. Join
me plus a few friends to demystify both materials and designs as your private jeweler. Let's
tune in on these topics and get golden. Some clients and consumers crave being different.
It is a part of our humanity to both belong and stand out. Exploring alternative alloys
allows for embracing the tradition of a wedding band and expressing with the nonconformity of
the material that made it. Is there a romance to wearing the same metal as used in transportation?
Or having your ring match the composite of a joint replacement? Does it go further than our
human innovation and progress and into our emotions and aesthetics? Let's shed light on the less
familiar to completely unknown compounds, their characteristics, and some of the disadvantages
of straying from the noble metals of the last episode. Chapter time stamps will be in the show notes.
These first three were grouped as options for alternative alloys in wedding bands
as we entered this century. On deck we have titanium, cobalt, and tungsten. Let's start with
titanium. Titanium is found in nature as an oxide, meaning it is bonded to at least one
oxygen molecule. It is relatively abundant in the earth's crust, and when reduced to its purest form
it is a silvery gray white metal. Discovered in 1791, just over 50 years after platinum,
it would take some evolution to settle on uses for this element. In fact, it would take almost 150
years to find a useful way to extract it from mind ore. Named after the Titans in Greek mythology,
titanium debuts as a material in timepieces. Fast forwarding to 1970, with its calm luster,
low density, and high strength, it made for a perfect element in watches. Here it allowed a
wearer to have a scratch resistant, rust proof, and weightless daily accessory. One of my favorite
watch houses, IWC, which stands for International Watch Company, which is located closer to the
German side of Switzerland, and was hearing of the use of titanium in cars. Now, given vehicles
and timepieces are both mechanically engineered, it makes sense that the late 70s and early 80s
would see that macro and micro relationship and application. With those advantages in mind,
it would be a matter of just over a decade that titanium wedding bands would make a mainstream
splash in the 1990s. The fact that it is pure and wasn't alloyed into a blend was a perk,
and it made for a hypoallergenic piece of jewelry. Add to that, it could be worn in the ocean or the
swimming pool and not corrode. It can take diamonds being set, as well as the inlaying of other
precious metals. Sounds great, right? Now it's time to address the drawbacks.
Titanium requires high heat forging. It had a long journey until a successful process to
isolate it once an earth was created. It is not a precious metal, so there is no real intrinsic
value to the material. And it can't be sized by a jeweler without some workaround. We simply don't
have the tools on a classic workbench. Also, it can't take a strong shine, and goldsmiths also
don't have the means to polish it up or buff out scratches. Where else does titanium show up?
Sporting goods and medical industries. Let's look at lightweight bicycle frames, tennis rackets,
helmets, and glasses frames for some examples. And because it is a biocompatible material,
it works well for dental implants and artificial limbs. It's neutral enough to spend a lifetime
in the body or on your own finger to commemorate a vow. Next would be cobalt. Again, found in the
earth in combination with other metals, it takes smelting to get it to its pure form. When we do,
it is lustrous, gray, hard, but brittle. So what is it like as a piece of jewelry?
Let's find out. Its durability is in its form of hardness. It is four times that of platinum
and five times that of gold. So this is highly scratch resistant. And about that brittle characteristic?
Well, cobalt rings have been marketed as shatterproof, as not every alternative of metal can say that.
It holds the shape under pressure, unlike the noble metals of gold, platinum, and silver.
Cobalt has a natural white luster that's similar to white gold and platinum, so it won't feed or
tarnish over time. And it's a natural white, so there's no yellowish undertone like a white
gold alloy. Similar to titanium, the material is hypoallergenic, so there's no risk of reaction.
And if there is irritation, it is what's on your cobalt ring, not the cobalt itself,
so active lifestyles can have a peace of mind. One benefit for manufacturing is that cobalt's
lower density and malleability make it easier to work yet produce strong lightweight pieces.
And lastly, that helps lower the cost compared to other options.
The drawbacks are that it also can't be sized. Some brands allow consumers to trade in their
ring if a size change is needed, which means it's not your ring anymore. Engraving can only be done
with a laser, unlike handwork, in gold or platinum, and titanium is soft enough to do so by hand.
And there are special tools that are needed to cut this ring off in case of emergencies.
Meanwhile, it makes appearances in other industries, like sensors and electroplating,
as there is a magnetic characteristic to it. The element is essential to our metabolism,
and a deficiency in it can show up in our physical panels. And perhaps the most romantic use is cobalt
is a very familiar term in paintings, glassware, and ceramics. And it's a very common term in
cobalt, as cobalt is a very familiar term in paintings, glassware, and ceramics, as that
compound that makes for a brilliant royal blue hue. And lastly, tungsten. What sets this apart
is that its melting point is double that of titanium. Like its counterparts, it too needs
purifying to get it to its isolated state. It's another element that was discovered in 1781,
and it seems the 1700s were prolific for finding new chemicals, eh? This is used as itself in jewelry,
and also as a tungsten carbide alloy, which in that state needs a binder like nickel,
which can be problematic if there's an allergy to nickel. The pros are the same,
affordability, hardness, and resistance to scratching. Now the allure of a gunmetal tone
definitely has visual appeal. The cons are also overlapping. It too cannot be sized. It also needs
laser engraving, but in this case, with the right force or blow, it can shatter. Diamonds cannot be
hand-sat in this material. Where tungsten shows up outside the industry is in military use,
electronics, lighting, conductivity, and tooling and abrasives. Let's move on to two recognizable
and familiar substances that made their way into wearable art and design. Steel. So we have a
traditional alloy that is here, there, and everywhere. Steel appliances. Steel trains, planes,
automobiles, and boats. Construction, needles, and orthodontic braces. It's simply a household metal.
Cartier was using it in its watchmaking, which I cover in that episode. So it's been around
for centuries. Stainless steel began getting worked as a stainless alloy as early as 1913
and would get normalized as the decades would pass into the 1980s for commercial wear.
Is it hypoallergenic? Yes, and strong. Where it begins to differ is that steel has the ability
to be hand engraved and it can also be plated with other metals. So it can be made to look like
yellow gold or rose gold or a chrome like white hue or even a glossy gun metal. It is cost effective,
can be polished, satin finish, or sandblasted. Diamonds can be set by hand and in some cases
steel rings are resizable and able to be shuttered together.
The disadvantage would be that there is no value in the steel. It can be problematic to size
and repolishing is more intense than with precious metals. If it comes in contact with
certain chemicals, there is a reaction. If the ring is lightweight or a hollow form, it can also dent.
The other everyday material is ceramic. My only non-metallic option here, you know you've seen
it as dishware, roofing and tiling, coatings for kilns, bearings for machinery, plus it's the other
half of the dental implants and cosmetic dentistry as crowns. Humanity has been working with variations
of ceramics for 26,000 years. When did it start showing up in our industry? In 1986, IWC, that same
watch house I mentioned with titanium, used ceramics in a watch and perpetual calendar
as part of the DaVinci collection. Lightweight showing nowhere or tear, which I'll say more
about that in a moment, and with some variety in color, it was a matter of time before it would
debut in rings and more specifically wedding bands. The benefit will sound similar to other
materials, the weightlessness, the affordability, the allergy free aspect, and a range of colors.
The beauty of ceramic is that it looks like day one even after years of wearing,
and then we also have the non-sizing issue and that breakage is definitely problematic,
which cannot be repaired and requires replacement. So let's round this out as far as a discussion
with a side-by-side on two alloys that can be mistaken for gold, brass versus bronze.
What they have in common is that both are copper-based compounds. Brass, which is softer and
more malleable so it is easier to form and polish, is blended with zinc. As for bronze,
it has tin added into its mix. Brass allows a jeweler to easily play with and manipulate the
metal, and it is an ancient alloy dating back to 500 BC, mostly used decoratively.
Even today, we see it in buttons and fasteners, fashion hardware, to fashion jewelry,
and we've also recognized it in musical instruments, from trumpets to church bells to symbols.
It's so easy to work with and it can help a hobbyist become proficient on certain metal
smithing techniques before buying more expensive material, because mistakes are low cost when
you're working with brass. As easy as it is to cast due to a low melting temperature,
the cost of wearing brass jewelry is due to its high copper content. It can turn green when it
comes in contact with your body oils, sweat, saltiness, or certain chemicals. It can also
oxidize fairly quickly even if you're not wearing it, so have your polishing cloth handy.
Bronze, on the other hand, has superior durability. For me, the alloy is closer to 14 carat gold
than the yellowy hue of brass. Its hardness is tougher to file, sand, and polish,
but the payoff is it holds its shine and oxidizes over a longer period of time.
It has also been around for longer, placing us in the Bronze Age at about 3500 BC,
where it was strong enough to be tools, weapons, armor, and sculptures, which it is still used
for in modern day. Several statues are made of this. I'll leave you today with my personal love
of both yellow bronze and rose bronze. In my career, it was a simple solution to cast a few
wedding band samples to carry around to clients when it came time to pick between the colors of
gold for their rings. I didn't have to insure them, nor did they need frequent polishing.
The richer colors looked, well, richer than brass, and therefore less costume jewelry like,
closer to what they'd be wearing at their wedding. I still get stopped when I'm wearing my bronze
arrowhead necklace, and in a pinch, if I forget my pocket knife, it's strong enough to open packages
or mailers without damage or dulling whatever finish I've put on that piece.
Thank you for listening and learning with me. I would love you to share this project with
people finding rare beauty in today's world and throughout our times. Until the next episode,
keep your own story sparkling.