JA NYC

Daniel Ballard will speak about Palladium and more exotic precious metals at JA New York July 27th at the Javits center. He will include information and video on casting, assembly and design issues for exotic materials like mokume gane and more.

Did anyone but yours truly catch the "product placement" of palladium in Iron Man? Not as jewelry (darn it) but as a high tech metal that was removed from the missiles and re-cast for the Iron Man suit. Not bad for a new metal. I wonder if DJS (the palladium marketeers) had anything to do with that...

What about those alloys

It is being reported that some palladium rings are too brittle to size much. These reports coincide with Pd/Ru/Ge alloys that have been extruded. Beware platinum family alloys with palladium! They can be brittle. They are excellent for continuous cast like seamless bands, and they stamp really well.

But as we all know lost wax casting is different. Just like gold, the best fabrication alloys are not often the best casting alloys. To a lesser extent this is true of platinum. The traditional blend of 9o0%Pt and 10%Ir was the casting mix, and 95%Pt 5%Ru was the fabrication/stamping blend. It's no coincidence that Ru is the tricky one to cast overall.

The disclaimer here is that at least one caster, (TechForm){http://www.techformcasting.com/) swears by the Pd with Ru blend. Different casters use differing plasters and methods, so these are general rules that certainly have exceptions.

Palladium Panel at JCK Las Vegas

The MJSA Education dept. and Luxurypalladium.com put on one heck of a panel for palladium. The panel included one of my favorite jewelry designers Lisa Krikawa, two very good casters, Linus Drogs of Au Enterprises and Teresa Freye' of TechForm. An excellent metallurgist and executive at Hoover & Strong was there, Mr. Stewart Grice. MJSA was kind enouch to include yours truly as well.

The news is we got questioned about how to better work with Palladium rather than "what is this stuff like?" In other words, the market is maturing, becoming aware of the material and how to best make use of it.

Dance

Just a shot of one of our furnaces starting up.

Palladium Prices up

Well it looks like palladium is pressing up against $500 per troy ounce. Ouch! But not to worry, all the metals are up. Platinum is well over $2100! But even today 950 palladium costs less than 14k gold. Sales people at retail stores should suggest palladium to anyone looking for an affordable fine white jewelry option!

Plumb Pd Solder Breakthrough

You know when you to the refining or foundry side of alloy work, you get very appreciative of those who test and assist at the bench. That bench work sits at the heart of our industry along with casting, stones and the rest. When I made some of the very first solders designed for 950 Palladium I was unable to test them properly at a bench. After all I am no bench jeweler! So I relied on my bench working friends, my beta test" crew. But they are not accomplished photographers.

Kudos to Mark B Mann who graciously tests all kinds of palladium products. he tested our "Plumb Palladium Hard" solder with good results as pictured. To me its old news that we have a great solder. It may be real news to you, the reader but the bigger news is this product he found called "Firescoff". Palladium does oxidize with torch heat. Sometimes you have areas that you can not re-polish

Mark not only tested the solders but took some of the cleanest soldering pictures of the process you will ever see. That my folks is not easy! Please remember these images were all done by Mark. if you have more questions contact Mark as per below.

My sincere thanks to

Mark B. Mann

Mann Design Group, Inc.

www.manndesigngroup.com

mmann@manndesigngroup.com

406-961-4426

Palladium Emerges

Some folks gave palladium a cold reception. Look whats happening now-Palladium is emerging as the hot jewelry to own.

Soldering Palladium

A video demonstrating the easy to use PD-xe solder from PMWest. You can see the mild oxidation that occurs which we remove easily with a rouge wheel. Shot at Artistry Of Gold, in Los Angeles.

Fun with palladium

Why not to cast Palladium with a torch

I shot this video when testing some pure palladium samples from different sources to see if one had more or less gas than another. The torch was a propane torch, the crucible was a fused silica that is typical for platinum work. This illustrates the exotic nature of palladfium beyond doubt. Palladium is the most exotic metal commonly used in fine jewelry.

I have this theory based on my experience and this video-The best way to get gas out of palladium alloys is to melt in a vacuum and allow to resolidify a at least twice.

Whats new?

I have some palladium news for you all. First, Thanks to Ganoksin.com for putting a nice spike in the visit rates here! All you orchidians please feel free to post, you are very welcome here.
We at PMWest have a new 950 palladium-casts a bit easier than most palladium alloys and is completely nickel free. like all our palladium alloys this blend age or work hardens really well. I have not named it yet.

Any suggestions?