Reusing Old Gold
Reusing Old
Gold
Many of us will have a piece of old gold jewellery that we hardly ever wear - perhaps because it is not our style or it is uncomfortable. Although it is rarely worn, we are reluctant to sell it, maybe because it has some sentimental value or is a treasured family heirloom.
I can tell you that it doesn't need to sit inside your cupboard and not be used. You could always upcycle the piece of jewellery and remodel it into something that you can love and wear all the time.
This is something we can offer with our bespoke service
The Process.........
In your design consultation you would bring along your old pieces of jewellery and we can look at making a new piece of jewellery.
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Design: Once you are happy with the design the jeweller can start to make your new piece
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Melting and Refining: The old gold is melted down and refined to remove impurities and alloys. This process ensures that you have a purer form of gold to work with.
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Customising: Once the jeweller has refined gold, you can work out the design in the best way to make it with a jeweller to design the new piece of jewellery you desire. Whether it's a ring, necklace, bracelet, or any other item, you can customise the design to your liking. This allows you to give new life to your old gold while preserving sentimental value.
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Smelting: Smelting creates a rough ingot which still requires working with to create a shape.
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Forming: The refined gold is now shaped by drawing it down or hammering it to a shape we can create the customers design to. This maybe the thickest part the piece maybe or into the shape of a band. Sometimes in this process we may have to create a piece much larger than the item to then cut the piece into sections.
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Setting: if the item of jewellery has stones added to it the jeweller will then drill holes out of the item and get the piece ready for setting. This made part can cause some gold to be lost in this process.
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Finishing: After then the piece is finished the new piece of jewellery undergoes a series of finishing processes, including filing, sanding and polishing.
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Final Touches: The final piece of jewellery is carefully inspected to ensure it meets your specifications and quality standards. It can be engraved, if desired, and given any additional finishing touches.
Unfortunately, because of the time and process involved you can lose old gold when making new jewellery. This process is commonly referred to as "remelting" or "recycling" gold. In some cases you can loose from anything between 10-45% of the original gold that has been recycled
When recreating a new piece of jewellery from old jewellery the process of each induvial piece can be a long process and in this method of handmade jewellery we can loose the gold in each process