Why does my jewelry keep breaking?

Posted on March 28, 2011 by John Fritze Jr

First, you need to understand that many precious metals such as gold or silver are relatively soft and malleable when compared to metals such as steel, iron, brass or bronze.  It is part of normal wear for a clasp on a necklace or bracelet to loosen, hinges to wear or prong tips to break.  It is also normal to need clasps to be routinely checked and tightened.  Wearing jewelry 24 hours a day exasperates this wear.  In particular wearing jewelry to bed will shorten its life span dramatically, by as much as fifty percent.  It will wear and loosen hinges, pull prongs, loosen stones, and/or break clasps ultimately costing the owner increased expense.

Take a look at the clasp on that bracelet that you’ve been wearing for the last ten years without a problem.  I bet that the connecting loops have all worn thin.  The loop holding that lobster claw clasp is worn to an atom’s thickness but you probably will not take it to the jeweler until the loop breaks.  Besides the broken loop, a good goldsmith will show you how the lobster clasp itself is worn at each end and the end cap on each end of the bracelet is also ready to let go.  A bad jeweler will just solder the loop and send you on your way.  You’ll be back again shortly when it breaks at the next weakest link.  You’ll be upset that you’ve worn it for ten years without a problem but now it keeps breaking.

Multiply this little scenario by the number of items you own that you never bother to look at.  Most jewelers do not charge one thin dime to look over your clasps to see what might need repair.  Even if you are too busy to take the time to actually visit a jeweler, you can look at the clasps and loops yourself.  It helps to have a means of magnification.

People are always telling me that the clasps are too difficult to manage to take these items off at night before jumping into bed.  Well, too bad.  A few moments of effort will pay off in less repair bills.  If you can’t work the tiny clasp, have you considered asking your jeweler to replace it with a larger one?  How about changing the difficult one with a different style?  There are so many different clasps on the market today, some even designed with arthritic fingers in mind.  Some of the new magnetic clasps are very impressive in the correct situation.

You should have the prongs on your various pieces of jewelry checked twice a year by a competent goldsmith.  It is always easier and less costly to repair or replace a prong than to try to match and replace a diamond or some other stone.  Have your things cleaned at the same time.  It’s a lot easier to look at small stones and their prongs if the items are clean.

Some people clean their rings with toothpaste.  Continued use of toothpaste, which is an abrasive, will expedite the wearing of the prongs.  Toothpaste is for teeth (what a concept), not jewelry.  Not only does it wear the prongs and scratch many softer stones, it leaves a film on the inside of a ring and the back of the stones.  This becomes a petrified mess that takes hours to clean properly.

Gardening while wearing rings is another cause of prong damage because as hands are rubbed in dirt it effectively wears the prong and stone surfaces like rubbing with sandpaper.  After all,  what is sandpaper made of? Fancy dirt.

Chlorine and chlorine products also damage the integrity of the gold that jewelry is made from.  Gold is inert, however the additional metals gold is mixed with to achieve different karats are not.  Jewelry ideally should never be worn in swimming pools, hot tubs, while doing laundry, or other places where cleansers use chlorine as a base.  The damage may not be apparent immediately, in fact it very seldom shows itself until a minor knock against a car door or shoving you hands into drawer too full of clothing.  All of a sudden you look down and the stone is gone from your ring, and you have no idea how it happened.

Of course the good thing for me is that you will be trotting over to get it fixed, and I can make my next house payment.  The fact that I can make a house payment on ten and twenty dollar repair jobs should tell you about the sheer number of people who don’t look at their jewelry.

While we are on the topic of looking at your things, did you know that most new chains and bracelets have open and unsoldered loops or clasps directly from the factory?  I could never figure out the reasoning behind this.  If you go to your local jeweler and spend some of your hard earned wampum for a loved one’s special occasion and it breaks or worse yet becomes lost because somebody cut corners, how are you going to feel?  Who will you be upset with?  The manufacturer?  You don’t have a clue who the manufacturer was; you are going to be mad at the retailer that sold you the bauble.  So why didn’t the jeweler inspect the item for open loops and have it corrected before putting it in his showcase?

Of course when I say that you should inspect those precious items you have or have someone look at them for you, don’t get the idea that you can fix the problems yourself.  I had a phone call one day from a lady who was all panicked to get her charm bracelet repaired.  It seems her husband tried to solder the charms himself, but he didn’t do a very good job and would I be willing to look at it?  I figured how bad could it be?  A day or so later a well-dressed middle-aged woman comes in the shop and I begin to listen to her story.  It seems her husband did not think that soldering silver charms on a bracelet should cost what he had been quoted, besides how hard could it be?  Just pull out the old electric soldering gun, some solder from Radio Shack, and give it a go.  I’m sure the thought through his mind was “I’ll show her how easy it is and I’ll be the hero!”  Well, when she finally presented me with his workmanship, I just knew this guy had missed his calling.  She held out bracelet by the end, it stood completely straight out from her hand with the charms standing perpendicular to the bracelet.  He had soldered the entire thing stiff!  “Is there something you can do to fix it?” she asked.  At this point the best I could do was to keep trying to stifle the laughter.  “Lead isn’t a friend to jewelry,” I answered and that “now it was too late”.  I’ll bet the soldering iron is retired and her husband is a little more emasculated.  Silver charms should be soldered with silver solder, and believe me, that doesn’t melt with your soldering gun.

Another repair that the average person will try to attempt is bead restringing.  On the surface it looks really easy.  Some thread or dental floss, a sewing needle, make a few knots, tie it to a clasp and viola’ it’s done.  Well, like most things in life, there is a knack to it.  The common threads for stringing are silk or nylon and are available in a multitude of gauges and colors.  They both look a little like dental floss but without the “eau de mint” to enhance the Chanel perfume you might be wearing.  The needles might be soft and flexible depending on the preference of the person doing the restringing.  The main trick is getting the knots tight to the bead, for if there is a lot of space, not only does it look sloppy but the play in the beads will quickly wear the cord.  I have seen many versions of the “bulgy” knot used to tie off the ends to the clasp.  I guess some of them might hold.  Otherwise when you are out for that fancy evening and your pearls break and go flying all over the restaurant, you will be the amusement of the rest of the patrons as you have your own little mini treasure hunt between the soup and salad.  While we are on this topic, it is recommended in the industry that you should have your pearls restrung at least once or twice a year if you wear them every day.  I usually tell people every few years is fine if you wear them one or two days a week.  After all, the cord is cloth, and you wouldn’t wear the same blouse every day for a year with out washing it, or would you?  Pearls and other beads will usually break at the very end first, so that is where they should be checked.  When there is a lot of slop or the cord looks rotten, it’s time.  And no, I can not retie a quarter inch of loose cord end back to the clasp.