You cannot avoid the necessity for frequent repairs when you wear your favorite jewelry every day. Valuable metals, wear, and evasiveness is inevitable.
To preserve your jewelry in the greatest condition possible, you can and should take care to store and clean it appropriately. However, long-term repairs will be required to bring it back to its optimum quality and toughness.
1. When Jewelry Repair Screws Up
It might take time to prove that your previous jewelry repair were entry-level. When an unqualified expert fixes your jewelry, they could inflict structural damage that is discovered once the item breaks again. But there is some obvious evidence of a poorly trained technician.
2. Tool Marks
Your jewelry will be meticulously handled and repaired with the right equipment and techniques by a skilled repair specialist. A less skilled person can use tools that are of inferior quality or are too hard for your metal.
All handcrafted jewelry will display signs of its distinctive creativity. However, it shouldn’t reveal any signs of repairs.
3. Clear Seams
A skilled pro will only leave visible seams if your gold jewelry needs to be trimmed or soldered. Rushed repairs, bad solder, excessive cleaning, and other problems may cause visible seams in a gold ring. This weakens your call and increases the likelihood that it will break and be unattractive.
Because platinum is more resistant to wear and tear than gold, working with it might be more difficult. Although seamless solders for platinum are available and may be possible for some restorations, seams in platinum are more frequently acceptable.
4. Damaged Gemstones And Diamonds
Exact precision is needed for prong repairs. If a rookie repair person tightens your prongs excessively, you can notice shards, splinters, or crushed edges surrounding the prong.
Your stone will be loose in the setting and may fall out if your prongs need to be tight enough. The stone may be harmed or destroyed if the prongs are too close.
5. Various Widths
The shank—the portion of the band closest to your palm—is cut when you get your ring sized or resized. Often, metal is added to a ring when sized up to maintain a constant bandwidth.
If your repairman stretches it without adding more metal, your ring’s shank is thinner than the rest. You should be cautious of this with a resized ring that was once even around your finger, even if this may be a feature of specific rings’ original designs.
Are Poor Jewelry Repairs Avoidable?
Before entrusting someone with your heirloom-caliber jewelry, request examples of their previous work. An expert craftsperson has to be able to demonstrate examples of their custom and repair work as well as evidence of their experience.
Always seek recommendations from friends and relatives, and study internet testimonials from previous clients. Customers will be delighted to refer a jeweler to you if they have previously performed good work.
How To Handle Poor Repairs
It may be attractive to request that the jewelry expert who performed the subpar repair work return your piece and restore it again at no cost. They might even consent to carry out the task.