How To Shape Gold And Platinum By Jewelry Designs

How to Shape Gold & Platinum

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Pouring Gold Ingots

When jewelry is hand-made, or parts and materials are fabricated, we need to use metal that is in a manageable form. After the metal has been alloyed to the right karat and color, the next step is to pour the precious metal into bars called ingots. Once the precious metal is in bar form, it can be rolled, drawn, and hammered into shapes that are usable to make jewelry.

Rolling Precious Metal Into Plate

In order to prepare gold, platinum, and other precious metals for jewelry making, it is necessary to create basic shapes and forms. To do this, barred ingots of precious metal are rolled through mills to attain bars, rods, and sheets in the desired gauges needed to craft jewelry. After each pass through the mill, the rollers are reset to a narrower gauge. After several passes through the mill, the metal must be reheated to cherry red and annealed in order to soften it and keep it from becoming brittle.

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Drawing Gold Wire

Another way of preparing gold or platinum for use in jewelry making is to draw the metal into wire. Precious metal wire is used to create prongs, filigree, and delicate designs. After pouring an ingot and rolling it into square rods on the rolling mill, we will form the metal into wire on a draw plate. The square rods of precious metal will be manually pulled through a series of tapered holes in a carbon steel plate. After each pass, the wire thins and has to be reheated and annealed to a cherry red to soften the metal so it can pass through the next gauge hole to further thin the wire.

Shaping Precious Metals

Once we have milled and formed the wire and plate for our project, we can begin working the metals into the shapes needed to make our jewelry. Through the use of hammers, anvils, blocks, forms, mandrels, dies, dowels, and presses, we will force the crude metal into the rough shapes needed for forming jewelry.

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Forming Gold & Platinum

Once we have shaped the wire and plate for our project, we can begin forming the metals into the desired shapes to be used in our jewelry. Through the use of a myriad of tools, precious metal is manipulated into the forms that will be needed in our project.

Filing Gold & Platinum

After a precious metal item is either formed or cast, the jeweler will continue shaping the metal through the use of files of various grit, size, and shape. Files are often the fastest and most precise way to contour and clean a precious metal surface.
A typical jeweler has dozens of files in various shapes and grits at their bench to form and clean small, detailed areas before polishing.

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Piercing Gold and Platinum

Another way to shape precious metal after it is formed is to pierce it. After drilling fine holes into the material, a fine jeweler’s saw can be threaded through the holes in order to trim away areas and leave behind the desired shape. In this illustration, you can see that the jeweler has whitened the metal and drawn a butterfly wing pattern on it. The wings are being pierced with a fine jeweler’s saw.

Cutting Assures in Precious Metal

Through the use of hand-held rotary tools, called flexible shafts, jewelers can use various interchangeable drills and cutters to eliminate material from precious metal forms. In many cases the assured areas are then enhanced by shaving the ports with awl-like tools known as gravers.

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Finished Pierced Gold Wings

In this illustration the18kt gold butterfly lattice was:
1) Poured into a gold ingot
2) Rolled into a plate on a mill
3) Shaped into a convex surface
4) Cut and formed into twin arches 5) Filed into wing shapes
6) Drilled and assured
7) Pierced into a filigree lattice

Finished Hand Made Gold Filigree

Here the final result is a pair of 18kt gold lattice wings that were used as a decorative tier on the underside of this diamond and sapphire encrusted butterfly. This butterfly was part of the world famous, "A Treasure’s Trove" collection and the entire process of making this piece can be seen in the "Design" section of this site under "Making a Butterfly".

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Jewelry Designs is the area’s leader in retail and manufacturing of fine diamond jewelry.
Jewelry Designs is located in Danbury, Connecticut in western Fairfield county bordering Westchester and Putnam counties on the New York state line.

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