It Has a Nice Ring to It

Do you all remember how much I love jewelry?  Good.  I knew you would.  Particularly, I love gem stones.  When buying jewelry, you must always remember that the gem stone is practically free compared to metal it is set in.  So, I’m doing a post on metal to educate and fascinate all you jewelry lovers out there

Yellow gold has sort of fallen out of popularity.  It has been years since a bride-to-be showed me her hand and there was anything yellow on it.  I don’t know why.  Do you know what romances me?  Functionality.  Do you know what gold can do?  Gold is a supremely good conductor of electricity.  The reason we use copper in our wiring is because copper is cheap.  It’ll turn your finger green because it’s not bio compatible.  But gold doesn’t necessarily make good jewelry because it’s the most ductile of all metals.  One ounce of gold can be mechanically stretched into a 300 square foot sheet.  Talk about flexible.  It’s also heat resistant and rockets sent into space are coated in gold and if they weren’t, the astronauts would fry.  Gold is used in a lot more things too, but I’ve gotta truck along.

Platinum is harder than gold so it provides a more secure setting for precious stones.  It is bio compatible.  It’s considered greyish white.  I’ve got to admit, I was considerably less romanced after I read its applications.  It doesn’t do anything fun, but it is super elite.  Wealthy jewelry owners all over the world adore this stuff.

Titanium is super hard for its weight and it is very resistant to corrosion.  Thus 65% of all titanium sold is used in making space crafts and air crafts.  Other than that, they alloy it with other metals like steel to make them harder.  Doesn’t that just make your heart soar?  Okay, I’m cheesy.  I have a titanium ring that I wear almost all the time.  It is extraordinarily comfortable, but it’s not very shiny (it’s silver coloured).

Tungsten means heavy stone.   It is super dense (much more dense than lead).  And if you have to have your ring cut off, the other metals I listed can be cut off (even titanium), tungsten has to be shattered.  It’s hard, but brittle.  And yeah, it’s heavy, but when they polish it (it’s silver coloured) and very very pretty.  They use tungsten for the tips of armour piercing ammunition.  Ahhh!  He shot my heart. 

Lastly, let’s talk silver.  Silver is soft.  It tarnishes.  And many an old woman’s jewelry stash has rotted away because silver really doesn’t live for the long haul.  The most interesting application I could find for silver was in the construction of musical instruments – particularly flutes.  My heart sings.

Rats!  I only got to do five metals.  And I missed trashing on copper.  Well, maybe another time.