An Overview Of Jewelry Repair
by Patty Buttonweiser
Jewelry repair encompasses a vast range of things that can go wrong with your jewelry and how such jewelry can be repaired. Your local jeweler can be quite a resource in the event that you need to repair your jewelry from a trusted source that won’t engage in underhanded practices like gem stone switching. You can also go to Fast Fix Jewelry Repair which is a chain of jewelry repair service outlets that usually occupy a kiosk in your local mall and will fix your jewelry right in front of you if they are not too busy.
Jewelry repairs range from simple procedures like sizing up a plain gold wedding band by stretching to as complicated as laser soldering gallery wire underneath an antique ring with an emerald stone. A jewelry repair service is only as good as its best jeweler and not all jewelers are good at all aspects of repairing. There is currently a shortage of seasoned bench jewelers in this country as older, more experienced workers retire and there are less younger people apprenticing to take their place. As a result bench jewelers of reasonable skill level are in short supply and command good salaries. This makes repair labor alone quite expensive and things like costume jewelry repair is not a service that has much demand these days because the cost of the repair will often exceed the value of the item by several factors.
Jewelry repair tools range from a simple bent nose pair of pliers all the way to a $25000 laser soldering machine. In the middle are tools like torches, rotary polishers, an assortment of files, saws and other basic tools required at a jewelers bench. These tools are used to perform a huge variety of jewelry repair services from stone setting and ring sizing to re-tipping prongs and re barring channel settings.
Different precious metals require different techniques to work them and get the repair results desired. For instance, solder melting points for silver jewelry repair will be different from that of solder used for gold jewelry repair. In the case of platinum, solder is not needed since platinum is 95% pure and can be simply wielded together at high temperatures. Sometimes the metals used can be hard to identify, especially in the case of antique jewelry repair where period pieces of high value were often made from non precious metals whose melting temperature is unknown and so small areas of the jewelry piece must be tested before full blown repair work can proceed.
Jewelry repair prices have been inching up because of the shortage of expert repair professionals and the increase in prices for raw materials like precious metal solder and rhodium solution. A simple ring sizing going one size up can run anywhere from $38 dollars all the way up to $250 depending on the metal involved, the width of the ring shank to be sized, and the vulnerability of any of the set stones in the piece.
Jewelry repair encompasses a vast range of things that can go wrong with your jewelry and how such jewelry can be repaired. Your local jeweler can be quite a resource in the event that you need to repair your jewelry from a trusted source that won’t engage in underhanded practices like gem stone switching. You can also go to Fast Fix Jewelry Repair which is a chain of jewelry repair service outlets that usually occupy a kiosk in your local mall and will fix your jewelry right in front of you if they are not too busy.
Jewelry repairs range from simple procedures like sizing up a plain gold wedding band by stretching to as complicated as laser soldering gallery wire underneath an antique ring with an emerald stone. A jewelry repair service is only as good as its best jeweler and not all jewelers are good at all aspects of repairing. There is currently a shortage of seasoned bench jewelers in this country as older, more experienced workers retire and there are less younger people apprenticing to take their place. As a result bench jewelers of reasonable skill level are in short supply and command good salaries. This makes repair labor alone quite expensive and things like costume jewelry repair is not a service that has much demand these days because the cost of the repair will often exceed the value of the item by several factors.
Jewelry repair tools range from a simple bent nose pair of pliers all the way to a $25000 laser soldering machine. In the middle are tools like torches, rotary polishers, an assortment of files, saws and other basic tools required at a jewelers bench. These tools are used to perform a huge variety of jewelry repair services from stone setting and ring sizing to re-tipping prongs and re barring channel settings.
Different precious metals require different techniques to work them and get the repair results desired. For instance, solder melting points for silver jewelry repair will be different from that of solder used for gold jewelry repair. In the case of platinum, solder is not needed since platinum is 95% pure and can be simply wielded together at high temperatures. Sometimes the metals used can be hard to identify, especially in the case of antique jewelry repair where period pieces of high value were often made from non precious metals whose melting temperature is unknown and so small areas of the jewelry piece must be tested before full blown repair work can proceed.
Jewelry repair prices have been inching up because of the shortage of expert repair professionals and the increase in prices for raw materials like precious metal solder and rhodium solution. A simple ring sizing going one size up can run anywhere from $38 dollars all the way up to $250 depending on the metal involved, the width of the ring shank to be sized, and the vulnerability of any of the set stones in the piece.
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antique jewelry repair,
fast fix jewelry repair,
Jewelry Repair,
jewelry repair service,
jewelry repair services,
silver jewelry repair