Recycled Metal
A quick note on recycled metal….
Recycled metal is definitely a hot button topic and it is something that a lot of my customers ask about. I thought I’d write a quick post about an experience I had recently with recycled metal.
When I was in school–both college and the Gemological Institute of America–I recycled metal all the time. I didn’t have a lot of money for supplies and even silver casting grain doesn’t come free so I’d melt down pieces that I had previously cast to use in new projects all the time. In college I had one experience where I had a MAJOR issues because of recycling metal too many times.
The piece in the picture at the beginning of the cast looks good enough for a college project right? Not really.
The picture above shows clearly the pits under the stone. Also, the hole in the bottom of the shank was not initially an intentional design element. There was a pit there that was so big I ended up drilling a hole through the piece and trying to incorporate the major flaw into the design. It wasn’t the best experience.
When I was at GIA, I never had any experiences where I had super visible pits in my castings but I also never tried to finish them, until recently. A couple of weeks ago, I took a bunch of castings I had from my days in California to the jewelry to have them polished so I could hopefully sell them. A few days later, I got a call. The jeweler told me some of the pieces had pits in them. I told him to do the best he could but I didn’t want to sink a lot of money into something that wasn’t going to be sale-able. He completely understood and said he would use his best judgement.
In this case, the pieces turned out really nicely with no real visible flaws, but you never know what the pits are going to do to the integrity of the pieces.
If you are recycling metal for something fun like a silver fashion ring that you aren’t going to wear everyday and will probably only really keep your interest for a few months, this structural weakening is probably not that big of a deal. But, if you are looking at something like an engagement ring or a wedding band that you are going to hopefully wear almost everyday for the rest of your life, this could be an issue.
If you want to be environmentally responsible but still buy jewelry follow these tips instead of getting it in your head that you HAVE to have recycled metal:
1. Buy smartly.
I love jewelry as much as the next person, but I don’t own a ton of it because I only have 10 fingers, 2 ears, and one neck. Only buy pieces that are perfect for you and that you think you will really wear.
2. Sell your old Jewelry.
I know the guys buying gold are making money, but they are also helping reduce the need for gold mining by giving customers an easy way to get rid of their gold, for some money. The gold your sell will go to a refinery and get made back into casting grain. In essence, you are RECYCLING your gold by selling it back.
I try to be as environmentally responsible as I can both personally and as a business, but making recycled gold pieces is not something I want to do or can do because I want to give my customers a piece of jewelry that will last forever.
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