Author: depehz

Responsibly Sourced Artisanal Gold: A Tour of Peruvian and Colombian Mining Communities. What is ASM or Artisanal and small-scale mining? Artisanal and small-scale mining can best be described as ‘low intensity’ mining, encompassing all types of mining from alluvial deposits to hard rock extraction1. Estimates vary, but in general it is accepted that ASM’s provide about 20% of the gold mined each year but employ about 80% of the mining population. Operations tend to be informal, very low technology based and labor intensive. In many cases, miners use hand tools...

Potential and innovation of the selective laser melting technique in the manufacture of platinum jewelery One of the revolutionary characteristics of selective laser melting is the possibility of processing materials that are notoriously difficult to use with other production techniques due to various melting mechanisms and modelling the alloys used in direct 3D metal printing. In the field of precious...

Improving abrasion and corrosion resistance of black finishes in the decorative sector Introduction Black decorative surface finishes are existing in several variations of accessible technologies and used every day covering a wide range of application methods. Though these methods have been used on an industrial scale for years, each method carries its own limitation. As the base substrates treated have a high probability to be white in color in the case of aluminum, steel, and silver, or in other cases pre-plated with a white layer used to protect the base...

Development of New 950Pd Investment Casting Alloys with Superior Properties State of the Art Palladium alloys were a topic at the Santa Fe Symposium mainly during 2006 and 2009 when the Pd demand in the jewelry section increased rapidly. Several papers on the palladium market [1], the investment casting process [2-4] and on the fabrication and manufacturing [5, 6] were published. The first investment casting study on 950Pd alloys was...

Introduction: the galvanic process Galvanic process refers to the depositing of a metal or metal alloy by using electrolysis during which the electrical energy developed inside the system is converted into chemical energy thus leading to a series of oxide-reduction reactions. The result of this phenomenon foresees that the electrical current passing through an electrolytic system reduces the metal ions dissolved in the electrolytic solution to form a metal plating on an electrode. With this technique, in fact, the properties of an object’s...

The Italian jewellery sector in 2018 The third quarter of 2018 registered a positive trend in global demand for gold jewellery with an authentic leap in quantity (+6%) after the feeble or negative data recorded in the previous quarters. According to the World Gold Council, the weakness in gold prices encouraged purchases, especially in India (recovering after downturns during the previous quarters), in China (also favoured by Qixi, China’s equivalent of St. Valentine’s Day) and in many other markets in South East Asia. Middle Eastern countries, however, were...

DIRECTIONS IN 2020 AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION FOR JEWELLERY Paola De Luca Co-Founder & Creative Director at Trendvisions Jewellery + Forecasting, IEG Italy Paola De Luca, in 2010, together with Italian Exhibition Group S.p.A. – organizer of VICENZAORO, one of the world’s leading international Jewellery Show – co-founded TRENDVISION Jewellery + Forecasting, an independent observatory focusing on trend forecasting for the jewellery industry where she supports the project as its Creative Director. Starting her career in New York in in 1989, she landed her first job as a designer for...

MECHANICAL PROCESSING: FOCUSING ON CRITICAL POINTS Andrea Friso Product Division Manager – Legor Group S.p.A. – Bressanvido VI – IT Andrea Friso performs at Legor Group S.p.A. as Sales Division Manager of Master Alloys. Materials engineering graduated in 2003, he starts his cooperation with Legor Group in 2004 by writing his graduation thesis about �innovatively colored gold alloys�. He is the company business role operating between sales force, production and R&D, relying upon...

Improving your investment casting process JÖRG FISCHER-BÜHNER Consultant in Research & Development Dr. Jörg Fischer-Bühner holds a PhD. in physical metallurgy and materials technology of the technical university RWTH Aachen. Since October 2007 he is active in Research & Development with Legor Group Srl, Italy, and Indutherm GmbH, Germany. Before he was Head of the Physical Metallurgy and Precious Metals Research division of FEM, the German Research Institute for Precious Metals and Metal...