Subject: Re: soft gold

From: [email-masked] (Thomas Rich Schwerdt)
Date: 24 May 1995 21:22:38 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>,
PeterWRowe <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Bill wrote:
>
>--Are you sure?  I realize that 24kt gold is quite soft, and most gold
>--alloys aim at making it harder, but there could be some allows that
>--are softer than 24kt gold...
>
>Yes Bill, we're all sure.  24K is the softest gold alloy you will find. 

I for one, am not sure. Try alloying gold with sodium or lithium ;)
Both of them should give an even softer alloy than 24kt gold -- of
course, they won't be much good for anything, but they will probably be 
softer.

-Tom the Melaniephile

---

From: Charles Lamont <[email-masked]>
Date: 26 May 1995 12:14:55 +0100

> course, they won't be much good for anything, but they will probably be 

I think your suggestion is based on the supposition that the properties of
an alloy will intermediate between the properties of the constituent metals.
This is not necessarily true.  The density generally will be, but, for
example, the melting point of the alloy will often be lower than that of
any of the constituent metals.

-- 
Charles

---

From: [email-masked] (PeterWRowe)
Date: 26 May 1995 03:51:37 -0400

>course, they won't be much good for anything, but they will probably >be 
>softer.
>
>-Tom the Melaniephile
>

Well, Tom, I can't guess on that one.  Sodium and Lithium are a couple
materials I don't, as a goldsmith, recall ever hearing about as alloying
agents in gold.  Sodium, of course, if real common in all our fluxes,
Borax, Salt, etc.  But I've never heard it proposed as an alloy.  Silicon,
yes, but that's a deoxidizer, and hardens the alloy.  Also refines grain
size, I believe...

Does the Lithium also give a very stable and tranquil alloy, perhaps
without all those manic highs and lows?  (Grin)

As to softer gold alloys, It stands to reason that if you have so much of
a softer metal added to gold that the gold is in the minority, you could
well have a softer alloy.  But gold itself is already considered the most
malleable and ductile of all the metals, at least in the accounts I've
read.  Adding, for example, tin, or lead, both of which are very soft by
themselves, very quickly hardens and embrittles a gold alloy.  So I'd be
sceptical of Lithium or Sodium's ability to increase the softness of gold.
 Course, I could be wrong... (But it doesn't happen very often)

Peter Rowe