Gold, platinum and titanium rings are traditional and fine choices for wedding rings but their current prices makes them impractical during tough times. You would normally settle for the next best thing but the alternative to those metals is really superior and cheaper than them. Palladium rings are made of the chemical element palladium and display the same characteristics as platinum and other precious metals. Palladium rings are a better alternative to gold rings because mens palladium wedding rings are naturally white so that it does not need any electroplated coatings of rhodium, which is the protective coating used for white gold wedding rings.
It be as white as possible without gray or yellow overtone. It must be rare and precious. It must have the right mechanical properties making it suitable for stone setting and high polish. It must be hypoallergenic and scratch resistant. I have been designing and making fine jewellery for many years, working with different precious metals. First it was gold (yellow, white and rose) in 9, 14 and 18k, then platinum and recently palladium. My hands on experience with most of the metals in the jewellery industry give me the capacity to compare and professionally assess them. Here is my view of 18k white gold, Platinum and Palladium based on the four characteristics above: Color – While men’s palladium wedding bands and platinum are undistinguishable by color, gold is easy to single out. The higher the gold content (karat) the more difficult is to “bleach” the rich yellowness.
Gold possesses unique precious metal qualities and if the gold content is decreased in order to achieve whiter color the resulted alloy ceases to resemble the initial precious metal properties. High purities white gold are impossible (there is no 22k white gold) with 75% (18k) being the highest. Even the best white gold alloy is not white enough and has to be rhodium plated. Rhodium plating is a surface treatment and it wears off. Purity – Platinum and men’s palladium wedding ring have naturally the best clean of overtone white color and thus they are used in almost pure form (95%). The alloying 5% are usually also metals from the PGM’s (Platinum Group Metals) Ruthenium and Iridium being the first choice. This leaves us with 100% noble metal content in the ready item. The highest purity white gold alloy has 75 % gold and often this is the only precious metal involved. Palladium gold alloys bring this percentage to about 87.5, but still very far from 100% noble metal content. Jewelry with 100% noble metal content possesses some very important qualities: It never tarnishes, changes color and it is totally hypoallergenic.
Many white gold alloys content nickel, a metal known to cause allergy reactions. Rare and precious – Any one of the three metals compared in this article is rare and precious. Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium are the only metals with ISO (International Organization of Standardization) currency code. The price of any of these metals is determined by many factors connected mainly to their availability and demand and is subject of daily change. At the time of the writing their price order is: Platinum, Gold, Palladium and Silver. This order was different just few years ago. In the beginning of 2001 Palladium was right at the top preceding gold and platinum. Platinum is statistically 15 times rarer than gold. Palladium is even rarer. Mechanical Properties – I have to take the risk of infusing my article with technical information, but I will try to keep it at the possible minimum. Besides the achieving of desired color as in the case of karat gold the precious metals are alloyed with other metals in order to achieve some mechanical properties that make them suitable for jewelry manufacturing. The ideal jewelry metal should be tough, abrasion resistant and suitable for high polish.
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