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Posted by Frank J Warner on April 20, 2008, 1:37 pm
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To make a long story short, a customer wants a very special knife,
which is mostly built. But he wants embellishments on the knife that
I've never attempted before, so I'm seeking advice from the good and
knowledgeable people in this group.
He wants a solid gold thumb stud, and he sent me the gold. It is, for
the unsqueamish, a dental bridge and a couple of gold crowns,
apparently harvested from his own mouth a few years ago when he plowed
into a bridge abutment and ate the steering wheel. The doctors had to
reconstruct his face, but they saved his gold teeth, which he sent to
me for this project.
Yeah. He sent me his teeth. You can stop gaping now. Metal content
ensues:
I've looked online and found that dental gold can contain lots of other
metals, including platinum, palladium, silver and even chromium, copper
and zinc. No way to tell what's in this guy's teeth. The fittings don't
look like gold. They look like untarnished copper. They don't have the
look of a 24 karat grille, but they are 40 years old.
I've melted and cast small gold parts before, but only from gold that
was 100% identifiable in terms of alloy. This is a different situation.
I have no way to know what's in this amalgam. I'm afraid to put a torch
to it.
My tooling includes a heat-treating oven that can reach 2200° F, a
propane torch and an AO rig. I have crucibles for precious metal
melting.
How can I make this guy's thumb stud?
-Frank
--
Here's some of my work:
http://www.franksknives.com
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Posted by woodworker88 on April 20, 2008, 2:12 pm
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The only way to be 100% sure of the chemical composition would be to
have it professionally assayed. Separately, you have to remove the
extraneous or undesired elements. To be totally honest, I'd be
tempted to tell the buyer to buy the proper alloy in new material. I
think it is too hard to make a high-quality product from the jewelery
equivalent of "mystery metal".
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Posted by Leo Lichtman on April 20, 2008, 2:48 pm
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"woodworker88" The only way to be 100% sure of the chemical composition
would be to
> have it professionally assayed. (clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"Splain to him that it is not a jewelry quality alloy, and offer him a
choice--either buy some other gold, or play with this at his risk. What can
you both lose? You could melt this down and make a simple casting, just to
see how it turns out. It's not going to disappear, and will probably be
more attractive (less disgusting) even if it doesn't work out for the knife.
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Posted by Ignoramus22545 on April 20, 2008, 10:25 pm
Please log in for more thread options > The only way to be 100% sure of the chemical composition would be to
> have it professionally assayed. Separately, you have to remove the
> extraneous or undesired elements. To be totally honest, I'd be
> tempted to tell the buyer to buy the proper alloy in new material. I
> think it is too hard to make a high-quality product from the jewelery
> equivalent of "mystery metal".
I think that if those teeth survived 40 years in the customers' mouth,
they will survive on the decorative knife. The cheapest would be to
pay a jeweler to cast them to the desired shape, IMHO.
I agree that it is a mystery metal, but its properties have already
been validated.
--
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to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
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Posted by Andrew Werby on April 20, 2008, 4:07 pm
Please log in for more thread options I'd say take the dental gold to a refiner (minus the bridge fittings) and
trade it in for casting shot of known alloy and karat. The refiner will give
you the value of the gold content, less a fee. That way, you won't waste
your time messing around with an odd alloy that may not work with your
casting process. Make sure to get enough to provide a button and sprue.
Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com
> To make a long story short, a customer wants a very special knife,
> which is mostly built. But he wants embellishments on the knife that
> I've never attempted before, so I'm seeking advice from the good and
> knowledgeable people in this group.
>
> He wants a solid gold thumb stud, and he sent me the gold. It is, for
> the unsqueamish, a dental bridge and a couple of gold crowns,
> apparently harvested from his own mouth a few years ago when he plowed
> into a bridge abutment and ate the steering wheel. The doctors had to
> reconstruct his face, but they saved his gold teeth, which he sent to
> me for this project.
>
> Yeah. He sent me his teeth. You can stop gaping now. Metal content
> ensues:
>
> I've looked online and found that dental gold can contain lots of other
> metals, including platinum, palladium, silver and even chromium, copper
> and zinc. No way to tell what's in this guy's teeth. The fittings don't
> look like gold. They look like untarnished copper. They don't have the
> look of a 24 karat grille, but they are 40 years old.
>
> I've melted and cast small gold parts before, but only from gold that
> was 100% identifiable in terms of alloy. This is a different situation.
> I have no way to know what's in this amalgam. I'm afraid to put a torch
> to it.
>
> My tooling includes a heat-treating oven that can reach 2200° F, a
> propane torch and an AO rig. I have crucibles for precious metal
> melting.
>
> How can I make this guy's thumb stud?
>
> -Frank
>
> --
> Here's some of my work:
> http://www.franksknives.com
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