The Palladium Alliance has fallen

To my great regret the economy of the commodities crash has ended PAI. Very low prices for palladium , under $200per ounce in 2008 and 2009 were too much to overcome. I'd like to thank all who worked so hard. Now it will be up to us, those whom have brought the metal into fruition to continue. We have a great metal, and the public is buying into items of extra value. Hey, platinum family, naturally white and far less costly than 14k white gold.

Kraftwerks News

We have some news about Kraftwerks-Its going online April 11th! Rather than make everyone fly in in these difficult times we update and adapt. We have a new gadget on the blog that shows the countdown to Kraftwerks New Media -The Release!

An Opportunity Lingers

Right now, you can get 950Pd for about $13 per dwt or about $8.36 per gram. 14k nickel white gold goes for nearly DOUBLE that amount of money at $25 per dwt or about $16 per gram. Of course 950 palladium is a bit lighter so theres even more benefit to the switch. Dazzle your customers with beautiful jewelry at price point guaranteed to appeal these days!

Get it while the price is good

As I sit down this morning, Palladium is $237 per ounce. This means I can sell all the 950Palladium jewelry metals for $13.86 per dwt or about $278. That in itself is good news. But when you compare this to 14kt white gold?! 14kt for casting is $24.86 a dwt, or $497.20 an ounce. In fact 10kt is far more costly than palladium. 10kt is $17.61 a dwt or about $352 per ounce.

PAI web redesign and new blog

Hi
PAI has done it again. The new discussion board looks good, and is easy to use.
Plus I like the new forum

Palladium degas flux

We received the sample in mid September. It seems to drive out the gas to some extent, but unfortunately our sample had leaked in the mail. We have an order in for more for more complete testing. We hope to start getting the flux in by November.

The induction tests were more promising than the torch tests. But we will continue as the flux (hopefully) becomes available again.

Degassing Flux

I have heard from a chemist who may have a solution to the gas in palladium. He says he has a flux that degasses palladium. I intend to test a sample ASAP!

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.