What are 'white gold's'? Are they a special form of gold? Do they contain gold? These are typical questions often asked of us.
April 21, 2006 (Press Release) --
What are they?
What are 'white gold's'? Are they a special form of gold? Do they contain gold? These are typical questions often asked of us. Well, they are not a special form of gold (which is why you cannot get 24 carat white gold). Actually, they are true carat gold's, just like yellow or red carat gold jewelry. They are gold alloys that look white rather than yellow. The white color is achieved by careful choice of the alloying metals, which bleach the deep yellow of pure gold.
It is interesting to note that white gold's for Jewelry were originally developed in the 1920's as a substitute for platinum. Nowadays, they are a Jewelry metal in their own right and currently very fashionable and desirable, particularly among the younger age groups. White gold's are available up to 21 carat. They are often used to enhance diamonds and other gemstones. White gold bridal Jewelry is increasingly popular.
Making gold white
Making gold white is similar to mixing colors in paints. Adding a red metal (copper) will tend to make gold red and adding a white metal tends to make gold paler and eventually white. Thus, all other alloying metals to gold, apart from copper, will tend to whiten the color and so it is possible to make carat gold's that are a reasonable white color.
while additions of any white metal to gold will tend to bleach it's color, in practice, nickel and palladium (and platinum) are strong 'bleachers ' of gold, silver and zinc are moderate bleachers and all others are moderate to weak in effect.
This has given rise, historically, to 2 basic classes of white gold's - the Nickel whites and the Palladium whites. The nickel-whites tend to have a colder white color, whereas the palladium whites have a warmer color. Good nickel whites tend to be hard and difficult to process. Good palladium whites tend to be soft, easy to process (but lost wax casting is more difficult) but are much more expensive, because of the price of palladium. Consequently, many commercial white alloys are thrifted in nickel or palladium and contain some copper; hence, color is compromised. At the 8-10 carat (33.3 - 41.6% gold) level, gold-silver alloys are quite white, ductile although soft and are used for Jewelry purposes.
White gold Jewelry is often plated with rhodium. There is, as yet, no legal or industry-accepted definition of what constitutes a 'white' color in gold's and hence the trade description of 'white gold' may not mean an alloy that is 'ice white' or 'detergent white'. For good technical and economic reasons, many commercial white gold's are not a good white color (usually a yellow-brownish tint) and are often rhodium-plated to improve appearance.
Rhodium is one of the platinum family of metals and has a high reflectivity and good metallic white color and is hard with good wear properties. A thin electroplated coating is often applied to white gold Jewelry to improve its white appearance.
Source: http://search.msn.com
What are 'white gold's'? Are they a special form of gold? Do they contain gold? These are typical questions often asked of us. Well, they are not a special form of gold (which is why you cannot get 24 carat white gold). Actually, they are true carat gold's, just like yellow or red carat gold jewelry. They are gold alloys that look white rather than yellow. The white color is achieved by careful choice of the alloying metals, which bleach the deep yellow of pure gold.
It is interesting to note that white gold's for Jewelry were originally developed in the 1920's as a substitute for platinum. Nowadays, they are a Jewelry metal in their own right and currently very fashionable and desirable, particularly among the younger age groups. White gold's are available up to 21 carat. They are often used to enhance diamonds and other gemstones. White gold bridal Jewelry is increasingly popular.
Making gold white
Making gold white is similar to mixing colors in paints. Adding a red metal (copper) will tend to make gold red and adding a white metal tends to make gold paler and eventually white. Thus, all other alloying metals to gold, apart from copper, will tend to whiten the color and so it is possible to make carat gold's that are a reasonable white color.
while additions of any white metal to gold will tend to bleach it's color, in practice, nickel and palladium (and platinum) are strong 'bleachers ' of gold, silver and zinc are moderate bleachers and all others are moderate to weak in effect.
This has given rise, historically, to 2 basic classes of white gold's - the Nickel whites and the Palladium whites. The nickel-whites tend to have a colder white color, whereas the palladium whites have a warmer color. Good nickel whites tend to be hard and difficult to process. Good palladium whites tend to be soft, easy to process (but lost wax casting is more difficult) but are much more expensive, because of the price of palladium. Consequently, many commercial white alloys are thrifted in nickel or palladium and contain some copper; hence, color is compromised. At the 8-10 carat (33.3 - 41.6% gold) level, gold-silver alloys are quite white, ductile although soft and are used for Jewelry purposes.
White gold Jewelry is often plated with rhodium. There is, as yet, no legal or industry-accepted definition of what constitutes a 'white' color in gold's and hence the trade description of 'white gold' may not mean an alloy that is 'ice white' or 'detergent white'. For good technical and economic reasons, many commercial white gold's are not a good white color (usually a yellow-brownish tint) and are often rhodium-plated to improve appearance.
Rhodium is one of the platinum family of metals and has a high reflectivity and good metallic white color and is hard with good wear properties. A thin electroplated coating is often applied to white gold Jewelry to improve its white appearance.
Source: http://search.msn.com
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