Yellow Gold in a Salt Water Pool

njc · Nov 14, 2005

While on a recent cruise, my mother noticed one of her rings seemed loose. When she looked down to check it out, the band of the ring was cracked and she noticed a diamond was REALLY loose. The ring has channel set diamond and sapphire baguettes (its my favorite ring she owns!). The ring was sized up when she bought it so i am guessing that is where/why the crack showed up. The only thing she could think of that she had done to cause such damage was taking a dip in the ships salt water pool.

One of her travel buddies also experienced ring trauma thought to be associated with the salt water pool. She lost a side stone to her 3-stone ering! My mom said it looked like someone had just cut the prongs off. Luckily they actually found the diamond in her room!

I told her to take all the jewelry she had been wearing to her jeweler to be checked and recommended she get her friend and other companions to do the same. I guess thats personal experience that yellow gold shouldnt be worn in salt water!

oldminer · Nov 14, 2005

Chlorine in swimming pools can deteriorate the alloy found in gold. The sea water on a crusie ship should not pose an equal threat to the alloy on gold although I suppose that with all the junk we dump into the ocean you might find that sea water has become more active in relation to base, alloy metals, than it was a hundred years ago.

Ship''s pools usually have quite a busy wave motion going on. Maybe the waves and forced the body to move and the hand to clasp the rail tighter than normal. This could break a solder joint where a ring was sized. It is best to remove jewelry before swimming, although the bling effect is diminished by taking all the sparklies off. I think it is mostly coincidental, not caused by salt water.

RockDoc · Nov 14, 2005

Date: 11/14/2005 3:33:39 PM
Author:njc
While on a recent cruise, my mother noticed one of her rings seemed loose. When she looked down to check it out, the band of the ring was cracked and she noticed a diamond was REALLY loose. The ring has channel set diamond and sapphire baguettes (its my favorite ring she owns!). The ring was sized up when she bought it so i am guessing that is where/why the crack showed up. The only thing she could think of that she had done to cause such damage was taking a dip in the ships salt water pool.

One of her travel buddies also experienced ring trauma thought to be associated with the salt water pool. She lost a side stone to her 3-stone ering! My mom said it looked like someone had just cut the prongs off. Luckily they actually found the diamond in her room!

I told her to take all the jewelry she had been wearing to her jeweler to be checked and recommended she get her friend and other companions to do the same. I guess thats personal experience that yellow gold shouldnt be worn in salt water!

As Dave wrote chlorine or any caustic substance is really a big time enemy of gold alloy, as well even more so with solder.

If the tiips of the setting look like they were broken, it is very possible that the prong tips had soldering done previously. If so, the solder will break open making it appear liike the prongs broke off.

In repairing this type of problem, new tips should not soldered on, but the "right" way to repair this is to replace the setting with one where the tips aren''t soldered.

Rockdoc