Re: Jewelry for people with severe alergies
- From: "Peter W.. Rowe," <rec.crafts.jewelry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 06:36:31 GMT
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:20:41 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry "Tom Dempster"
<tdempster.at.westgatesoftware.dot.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>I'm looking for something for my wife for our 25th anniversary. She doesn't
>>wear her gold wedding ring anymore because she is allergic to everything on
>>the planet, or so it seems, and not surprisingly she developed a skin
>>reaction to the ring. If it's possible to speculate, what material tends to
>>illicit the fewest allergic reactions among the general public? Of course,
>>one person's allergies aren't necessarily the same as someone else's, so
>>maybe this is an impossible question. Heavens, I can't even buy her flowers,
>>which cause all manner of asthma distress.
>>
>>
>>
>>Any ideas appreciated.
>>
>>
>>
>>Please reply to the group rather than email.
>>
>>
>>
>>Thanks
>>
>>
While there is no metal to which nobody ever has a reaction, some are a lot
less likely to cause trouble than others.
Of the usual precious metal alloys, it's most common for allergies to be not to
the actual precious metal, ie gold, silver, platinum, but rather to the alloying
metals, especially copper, or even more, the nickel in many white golds. It's
useful to note that if your wife's ring is a white gold, then her reaction to it
is not uncommon. A fairly significant percentage of people are quite sensative
to nickel based white golds as commonly used in the U.S. But in any case,
purer qualities of gold, ie higher karats, may be better. In gold alloys, a 22K
gold might well work, especially if it's an alloy with little copper, but more
silver, although this is softer than the alloys incorporating copper. Or, how
about just pure 24K gold. It's quite soft, too much so for many designs, but
not all. Designs made to take into account the softness of pure gold can be
quite durable. Simple heavy wedding bands in pure gold are wonderfully
beautiful and long wearing, and few people have any reaction to them.
Even more commonly associated with a freedom from allergic reactions, is
platinum. In addition to platinum being even less chemically reactive than gold
(which is already not very reactive), it's usually used in an almost pure state
(90 to 95 percent pure), and is often alloyed with other metals that are also in
the platinum group, especially iridium, which is considered equally
hypoallergenic. It's common, for example, for surgical implants to be faced
with platinum. Pacemakers, for example, are sometimes made with a platinun
covered exterior, for just this reason.
You also have options in less valuable materials that many people find to be
hypoallergenic. Titanium or niobium are both highly reactive chemically,
especially with oxygen. What this means, though, is that they both bond
extremely tightly with oxygen, and the resulting titanium or niobium oxides are
very hard and stable, and the metals, in normal use, are always covered by an
almost impervious surface film of these oxides. The oxide layers can be
enhanced by heat or voltage to exhibit beautiful interference colors too. Both
of these materials are also commonly used in surgical implants, because of the
rarity of allergic reactions to these metals, and both are quite reasonably
priced. Not all types of jewelry can be made from these, however, since neither
one can be soldered in the normal manner. But modern equipment allows them to
be welded and cast quite well, if you've got a jeweler sufficiently acquainted
with the specific needs of these metals.
And the classic hypoallergenic metal is still surgical qualities of stainless
steel. Inexpensive and long wearing, it can also be made into quite attractive
jewelry.
In recent years we've also seen some exotic materials used in wedding bands. I'm
thinking of tungsten carbide. A dark grey metallic material, more like a
ceramic actually, who's hardness usually suggests it's most common use, cutting
tools. But that same hardness means that those few firms that can machine it
into a wedding band, have produced one that you'd have to work very hard to
scratch or ding up. And i'll bet that it's pretty good in the allergy
department too.
I'm sure there will be others in the group with yet more suggestions. These are
just the ones that first occur to me.
Peter Rowe
.
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- From: Tom Dempster
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