Permanent Jewelry with Orion Micro Welder
Gold filled chains are a great option for permanent bracelets, if you do not wish to have the expense of solid gold (I wholesale both!). Here are 5 things you need to know about gold filled permanent bracelets:
1. Gold filled is not the same as heavy plating. There must be at least 5% solid gold, and gold filled is 100x thicker than any plating process.
2. The Gold Filled label is heavily misused by many people in the industry, especially overseas suppliers, on purpose or misunderstanding. There is a legal standard in the USA 1/20 14kt (for 14kt gold filled)
3. Permanent bracelets are meant to stay on “forever” until you cut it off. This could be months to years. Plated gold, over stainless steel or even silver, will lose its plating and the metal underneath will seep through. However, gold filled behaves the same way as solid gold with wear and tear, due to its thickness.
4. You can solder gold filled, but when you weld gold filled, a dot of darkened metal will show. Over time, the dot (which has exposed brass core melted through) will remain. However, as you see in the video, it is not readily visible and does not grow.
5. Some people, due to the chemical makeup of their skin, will find gold filled tarnishes a bit. This would occur the same way that solid gold would for this individual. The same thing is true for allergies. If the person is allergic to solid gold, they would be allergic to gold filled – of the same karat (but on the market there is usually just 9kt, 12kt and 14kt gold filled, popular being 14kt).
Here I have taken a videohttps://youtube.com/shorts/JadmiU_rpYg of what a permanent gold filled bracelet looks like after 3 months, worn by a non-delicate child, through summer sweat, sunblock and in chlorinated pool water.
