How to keep the cost of Jewellery repairs down

The answer to this question is to avoid owning Lightweight or thin jewellery and specially the same made of high carrat gold ! The thinner or lighter  the piece  the harder the items is to repair, and therefore the more you are likely to be charged to fix it,  and also the easier it is to break in the first place. The higher the carrat of gold the greater the risk that part of the piece will get so hot when trying to repair that it can begin to melt before the solder has a chance to flow .Lightweight thin chains for example cannot be repaired with normal workshop soldering tools and have to be sent to Hatton Garden for a week where they can be repaired with a LASER . These machines are very expensive on average £25.000 each and there are only a few in London , they use vast quantities of electricity especial when  used to repair silver instead of  gold ,because silver has a property of dissipating the heat from the Laser almost as fast as it can be heated  . More substantial made jewellery is stronger therefore needs far less repair and is far easier for the Jeweller  to repair . Therefore the repair charge is Cheaper ! So in the long run heaver jewellery is much better choice .                                 written by Clive Gilbert  [with 40 years practical experience of repairing jewellery]

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