A general quality assurance program incorporates various tests that are related to incoming materials, processes used in manufacturing, and finished products. In gold jewelry manufacturing QA tests involve the evaluation of chemical, physical and mechanical properties of the materials made with the gold alloys. Often, the instrumentation to run all these tests is not available to a jewelry manufacturer. To ensure a good quality of the product whether this is a cast, stamped, formed, or assembled item, and to optimize the quality assurance, we have to consider the implications of such properties of gold alloys as: gold assay, bulk composition, level of impurities, grain size, hardness, strength, melting temperature range and color. These questions are addressed in this presentation, where we also correlate the tested properties with the manufacturing processes.

Author: Greg Raykhtsaum, Dr. D.P. Agarwal, Dr. D.P.