| When I was at the Revere Academey, Alan brought in a piece of purple gold one day. Unless you have pure 24K gold, you mix in different metals to alloy the Karat gold you want. I can't remember which other metal was mixed in off the top of my head, but it is just a different recipe as it were for gold. What Alan was trying to impress upon us was that not all alloys were good to use. You had to know what you were going to do with the exotic gold recipes before you cast them. With purple gold you can do no more than just carve into it and reshape it via grinding and such. It is non malable and in Alan's eyes thus inferior to the regular alloys that you can beat, stretch and other abuse. I personally wanted to make some pieces using it. I can look the recipe up in my notes and I'm sure it is in some of my books if anyone wants the exact alloy amounts. In fact I drew up a pearl necklace sort of art novueaish with an orchid in purple gold and lotts of pearls and a few colored gems stones accented with white gold. I may haul that design out again now that I've met the pearl experts here and ...... with a pending trip to see Douglas' marvelous pearls.  |