Alloying Gold with Yeena Yoon
- Date
- 26 Feb 2025 · 9:30AM - 4:30PM
- Price
- £349 (6 places)
- Venue
- The Goldsmiths' Centre, London EC1M 5AD
- Programme type
- Technical Skills Training
Learn how to recycle and alloy your gold with experienced jeweller Yeena Yoon, giving you full control over the process and choice of colour while complying with hallmarking standards.
A follow-on to our popular Recycling Silver short course, Yeena will cover the general logic and alloy behaviour of coloured carat gold (ternary alloy system), exploring how to control variations in colour and correctly prepare materials for your practice and leave with your own piece of gold sheet.
Ideal for experienced makers who are recycling their own silver or are already working with 18 carat gold, this short course will focus on the science of metallurgy, atomic logic and material behaviour. You will be taken on a journey of discovery as you prepare gold sheet following simple metallurgy rules and understand the working characteristic of the alloy to avoid overworking, defects and loss.
By combining metal elements, such as gold, silver, and copper, in different ratios, you will learn how to weigh out each of these metals in their pure granular form and melt them into a single ingot for working from scratch. From the successful alloy, you will then be shown how to shape it into metal sheets.
Our small class size offers you the chance to get a group as well as individual guidance and 1:1 time with your tutor. Our teaching assistant allowing you to receive tailored advice to deepen your knowledge and understanding of metallurgy and ensure health and safety at all times.
FAQs:
Delivered in person at the Goldsmiths’ Centre, this course will help you to:
- Improve your sustainability: By repurposing your gold, you will add to your sustainable practice and help improve the dramatic impact excessive gold mining can have on the environment.
- Enhance your business ethos: By learning how to recycle and alloy your own gold, you will improve your business credentials when making new designs.
- Cost effective recycling: Re-use your own waste instead of constantly buying fresh metal.
- Valuable service offer: Understand how you could re-use your client’s own metal, adding to the emotional value of a piece of jewellery.
- Comprehensive metallurgy knowledge: Building confidence in your own practice will empower you to be your own master when it comes to preparing your bullion and choosing the colour of your metal.
You will learn:
- How to maximise the use of your materials, recycle and re-use fresh gold scrap.
- The theory and general logic around the alloying process, exploring what is needed to prepare your own gold alloy.
- Deep dive into metals behaviour, looking specifically at the ternary system in coloured carat gold alloys.
- Observe the techniques for recycling existing scrap and matching existing alloys.
- The Maths behind calculating different ratios to achieve various alloys, weighing out each metal and alloy from scratch.
- The science behind working with the alloy: using metallurgy principles to shape metal recognising when to anneal to avoid overworking.
- Receive demonstration on how to turn 24 carats gold into hallmark compliant 18 carats gold.
Please bring your own basic tool kit including but not limited to:
- Piercing saw frame
- Hand files
- Calculator
- Soldering probe or tweezers
- Tin snips
- Calipers/Vernier
- Protective clothing or clothing you do not mind getting dirty e.g. 100% cotton or leather apron, and closed-toe shoes.
Optional:
- Spectacles or head visor (if required) to work on small details
- Notebook and pen
You will be provided with:
- All precious and non-precious metals needed
- Pairs of soldering goggles
- Precision scale
- Tools and equipment needed for melting and preparing sheet metal
- Metal tester kit
- Intermediate: Some practical experience and basic understanding of the listed skill required
In order to benefit most from this course, participants should have experience of being in a workshop environment and able to work independently on basic tasks such as annealing and using the rolling mill.
We believe that talent should not be held back. Here at the Goldsmiths’ Centre, we are open, accessible and inclusive to all. Our Access Grants help anyone to build thriving creative careers, supporting jewellers, silversmiths and allied industry practitioners to access our training courses for free.
If you need help to cover fees for our business and technical skills short courses, please apply for one of our Access Grants. To find out more and read our application criteria, click here
The Access Grants are delivered by the Goldsmiths' Centre and funded by the Goldsmiths’ Company Charity.
Who is the tutor?
Yeena Yoon is an award-winning jeweller and goldsmith. Originally working as a professional architect, Yeena’s approach to design is through innovative use of materials in search for a new spatial composition and its material expression. Every piece of her work shows her passion for craftsmanship and individuality, created with meaning and expert skills.
Yeena specialises in fine gold wirework and gemstone lapidary, both of which were honed under the meticulous direction of world master craftsman Giovanni Corvaja and Charlotte De Syllas. Yeena is the recipient of multiple awards and grants in her field for her innovative practice, including The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust Scholarship (2021) and a beneficiary of the Gem X Scholarship (2022), alongside being a returning exhibitor at the Goldsmiths’ Company Goldsmiths’ Fair and showcasing internationally.