Maintaining jewelry

 

As I mention this damage possibility, it reminds me to warn you that jewelry needs regular care.  

Take it to a jeweler regularly to have them check to see if stones are getting loose.  Catching them on your sweater or hitting them casually while wearing them can loosen stones, bend the points of the prongs or even chip and damage the stones.  

Most good jewelry is a big investment, and it is a shame if you look down to see a valuable stone broken or missing from the setting.  Abrasion just in day-to-day life over time can wear the tops of the soft metal prongs off leaving the stone ready to just drop out. 

 

Little beads of metal can be added to the prongs to resecure the stone (Repointing) Unfortunately, this can make the ring or other pieces of jewelry catch on things like cloth or clothing and hair.  You become used to the worn points over time so the newly repointed prongs can be irritating.  You can ask the jeweler to file them down a bit if this bothers you, but you may have to do the repair more often that way.  The entire shaft of metal from the body of the piece to the stone is a prong.  The tiny bit of metal at the top that actually holds the stone is called a point.  Both can be replaced as necessary.

Also, have the jewelry cleaned regularly.  Oils from hands and hair can accumulate on the surface and the backs of stones can become disgusting and dull looking in no time flat.  

I see cooking shows where the cooks are kneading bread with all these diamond rings on their hands.... This really disgusts me as lumps of oil, soap, cooking residue, food and skin cells build up under these stones.  One of the most disgusting things I have ever done in my life is cleaning neglected rings!

This also gives you the opportunity to make sure you can remove your rings easily...never allow your rings to get tight...you can lose circulation in your fingers...swell and cut into your flesh.  If you get a bug bite on your finger or hand it can cause your finger to swell and cause real problems.  You can even lose a finger or more if the problem cuts off circulation for long.  Even losing circulation for a few hours while you sleep can do terrible damage.

One problem is that if all this happens over time, you may be unaware that the strangulation of your flesh is occurring.  You are used to the way your hand feels.

There are plenty of cleaners and ultrasonic devices to help in cleaning.

  IF THE RING IS NOT FRAGILE, lay the ring on its side on a flat surface and attack it with a toothbrush and GEL toothpaste...forcing the bristles in behind stones with a sort of chopping motion can work wonders and rinses cleanly when you are done.  This is not too rough if you have maintained and checked the ring regularly.

Another issue is that rings worn stacked up on your fingers can very quickly wear against each other.  Wedding sets can even wear away at the diamond ring heads that hold the stones from below and literally under cut and pop the whole top off the ring.

If you do stack rings, try not to mix metals or mix the Karat of rings as harder metals will wear away at softer metals very quickly. The higher the Karat of the gold the softer it is.

If you are wearing a wedding set...a band and an engagement ring... and you always wear them together, you can have them soldered together into one ring or even have the ring backs removed completely and a new shank attached to the two rings to make them one.

Also, softer metals on pendants will wear right away on harder chains thus losing the pendant.  I have also seen hard metal pendants wear away at softer chains till the soft chains wear thin and break.

A jeweler can add a little strip of metal to the inside of your ring that is wrapped around the ring to secure it.  This makes the ring smaller on your finger and tighter.  There is no way that the jeweler can make this tight enough that the metal will not move against the soft gold of the ring.  This can cause damage to the ring.

If you have  the money, there is a device that can replace the back(shank) of the ring with a hinged device that opens the ring up and closes again to allow you to remove the ring over enlarged knuckles.

Be careful with pearls, turquoise and opals in caustic liquids and oils, hand and body creams, abrasive and caustic soaps and lotions.  Clean pearls often but with a very soft cloth or with claners specifically approved for pearls.  Your skin has an acid quality to it and can damage delicate surfaces.

If a chain becomes knotted, lay the chain on a flat smooth surface like a ceramic plate.  Use two sewing needles or corsage pins to pick away at the knots and untie them.  Wrapping the chains tightly around a folded piece of cloth and fastening the clasp closed will keep them from knotting up in a loose pile of jewelry in storage.

There is a less common wear issue.  Most people do not own huge pieces of jewelry or tiaras so fewer of us have to worry about this.

Any articulated piece of jewelry such as flexible bracelets, necklaces with multiple parts and pendants are constantly on the move.  Even if the two pieces of a piece of jewelry are the same karat, they are constantly moving.  Eventually these pieces wear against each other and the parts that join them eventually wear through causing them to fall apart.

In tiaras, the edge that is worn against the head is usually quite ridgid.  Also, some are meant to be quite springy. Inevitably, the hairdresser or whoever is handling the piece will flex the piece slightly.  It does not take too much to cause METAL FATIGUE.  This is the characteristic of most metals to fail and separate where it is constantly bent back and forth.  

If you need a piece of wire in the real world one can break off a piece by simply bending it back and forth till it breaks.  

Anyway, eventually these pieces can develop a weak spot and fail.  One famous example of the was at the wedding of Queen Elizabeth II.  She planned to wear a famous Fringe Tiara that belonged to her grandmother.  It was not a new piece and it was worn alot.

  One cannot simply run back to the palace into the princess's room and grab a different tiara laying around on the dresser.  These are locked away like most pieces because of their immense value.

  Just before the wedding the tiara broke in half.  Fortunately (like most of us) there was a jeweler on standby in the church and he was able to repair it before the ceremony.  I suppose one must always have a jeweler handy in case one has a jewelry emergency!

  Apparently, she also forgot to bring the pearl necklace she wore and some poor bugger had to race back to Buckingham Palace to fetch it.  

If you look closely, you can see the break in the tiara in the wedding portraits of the queen.  There is a very small gap between two of the "rays" in the fringe spikes.

Most chain links wear against each other as they move, so one must be constantly vigilant with pieces that are a bit older.  With yellow gold (especially high carat) this may not take long.  Your local jeweler can simply put it under a scope or just examine it with an eye loop (a magnifying glass meant to he held in the eye socket).

When I build a tiara, I make that lower piece of the tiara with silver wire so that it can simply be clipped off the tiara and a new one soldered on without great expense. I also double it up so that there are two wires to wear through rather than just one.

Many modern tiaras, especially less expensive ones are usually soldered on to a piece of spring steel rather than precious metal.  

This part of the tiara is usually wrapped in or stitched into a piece of some sort of animal fur or velvet ribbon so that pins holding it to the hair have something to "grab" on to.  The fur or ribbon is usually in a similar color to the wearer's hair color so that it becomes less visible.

  With heavy pieces this may also act as a cushion for the heavy piece.  Sometimes too, if it is a massive piece there may be a cap sewn into it to rest more easily on the head.  A cap in a heavy piece distributes the weight over the head rather than just one line of metal around the head.  These are not really very heavy as a rule, a few ounces only, but you would be surprised how little it takes to give you a headache or a neck ache.  The crowns of the Brits weigh over five pounds.

I never really noticed this weight in a jewelry piece.  I just took it for granted.  I am planning to give away an 18K gold watch this week to the husband of a former employee and friend and when I picked it up, I was surprised at the weight of such a small object.