What You Don’t Know about Fabricating Platinum Could Be Costing You Money
Platinum is bright, shiny and resistant to tarnish. It can be used to make beautiful jewelry, labware, and even the outside casings of implantable medical devices. For those reasons, many people believe that the only way to produce a piece of platinum - be it a ring, a lab crucible or anything else - is to cast it in one piece.
But the fact is, platinum items can be fabricated in much the same way as other metal items. And when platinum is fabricated using the techniques we describe below, platinum scrap is almost always produced - platinum scrap that a smart precious metal investor can collect and recycle profitably, using a qualified precious metals refining company like Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners.
Are you ready to learn? Good. Here are some ways that platinum can be “worked” to produce beautiful, durable items . . .
- Platinum can be machined in many ways. It can be drilled, turned on a lathe, milled and surface ground, just like most other metals can. And when it is, platinum scrap results, in the form of powder, shavings, worm-like squiggly coils, chips, and chunks. And with platinum trading at high prices today, even a small quantity of scrap can be worth a lot of money.
- Platinum can be soldered, using special fluxes and a very hot hydroflux torch. However, it is not good to solder platinum using an oxyacetylene torch, which can contaminate platinum with small quantities of carbon.
- Platinum can be annealed, just like many other metals that have “loose” molecular structures. To do it, you heat up a piece of platinum with a torch and pound on it with a hammer, or pass it through steel rollers that compact its shape. The goal, if you are not familiar with annealing, is to drive the molecules that make up the metal closer together, making for a harder, more abrasion-resistant metal. Annealing platinum doesn’t produce a lot of platinum scrap. But it is necessary to polish it after it has been annealed. And that polishing does produce minute quantities of platinum powder.
- Platinum can be filed and sanded. Yes, you can take a regular old file or piece of emery paper and use them to shape platinum. And when jewelers do that to shape the platinum pieces they have cast, machined or fabricated in other ways, platinum powder results that is well worth collecting and recycling.
- Platinum can be finished with a polishing wheel. Jewelers do this all the time to produce a bright, shiny surface on the platinum objects they have made. When platinum is polished using a wheel, a good quantity of platinum dust results. Some of it clings to the polishing wheel, some is released in the air, some is captured by vacuum devices that are attached to polishing wheels. The point is, valuable platinum powder and dust are created when platinum is polished. And if you are a smart investor in precious metals, you can capture it.
- Platinum rings can be sized. They can be heated, placed on mandrels and made larger, just like gold and silver rings can. The exception are rings that are platinum-plated. For example, if you try to resize a platinum-plated gold ring, the platinum that is on the outside will crack.
Collect Platinum Scrap and Call Us Today
Don’t let those valuable powders, shavings, powders and dust get away. They can be found in factories, jewelry fabricating companies - anywhere platinum objects are manufactured or repaired. Call Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners at 800-426-2344 so we can help you turn your platinum discoveries into dollars.
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