Osmium for jewelers
Osmium can be used in jewelry since it became possible to crystallize it. Hublot for example made use of this in clock faces for exclusive wrist watches.
In more recent times, jewellers no longer create jewellery with osmium alone, but replace the traditional diamond, which is not as easy to work with, with osmium.
Osmium also has a flat crystalline sub-surface so that it is easy to grasp and can be easily removed from the jewellery without being damaged and therefore losing its status as an investment metal.
The metal is quite new on the market, so its use in the jewellery industry is still in its infancy. Become part of this new billion euro market. We look forward to meeting you and will cooperate with you as the Osmium-Institute.
There are many reasons to work with osmium. The abrasion resistance alone, the compression modulus, its stability and value retention are what it stands for.
Osmium feedstock
The raw material for making jewellery out of osmium are so-called osmium discs with a diameter of 55mm and a mass of about 30g.
Osmium can be cut out of the discs in various shapes. The classic form is the round osmium diamond. When two osmium diamonds are cut, the counter form is the osmium star. It is a four-beam star which, like the diamond, is flat and can therefore be ideally placed in jewellery.
Osmium round bars are often confused with rings. In reality, they are portable rounds in the form of a ring, but embedded in titanium for protection.
Forms of osmium are cut by wire-cut EDM. Each form can also be ordered as a customized product. The overcut and the amount of osmium lost on the wire as well as the working time must be taken into account.
Calculations for such work are prepared by the Osmium Institute to introduce and certiry osmium GmbH. Usually an enquiry does not take longer than one working day to answer.
Jewellery
Osmium is treated like a diamond in jewellery production. It can not only be set but also brazed, glued or laser welding processed.
The metal harmonizes very well in the combination with platinum, gold and silver thanks to the blue-white lustre and its high reflectivity in the spectrum of sunlight.
In addition to discs, round bars, diamonds and stars, there are also pearls, i.e. spherical round crystallisations, and starrows, in which several stars are still connected in a row after the cutting.
Stars are generally delivered as Starrows and can be fractured by the designer to fit the desired length.
Since osmium can reach different layer thicknesses and crystallization heights, osmium is generally sold by weight. Stars and Diamonds are slightly above the price model, as the cutting and deburring as well as the removal of erosion wire residues is carried out by hand.
Technique and process
Osmium can be processed and brazed up to a temperature of 500 °C.
The development of osmium tetroxide may occur when the temperature increases. However, the slightly pungent smelling gas is immediately reduced to elemental osmium at the tin solder and the oxygen is released again.
If a pungent smell is noticed, the work must be stopped and the room ventilated.
In most cases, osmium is set or glued.
Osmium can be filed, but being the metal with the highest abrasion resistance, diamond files should be used for this purpose. Please check in the Osmium training to learn which grain sizes are to be used and how osmium can be processed in general.
Individual production
By now osmium can be crystallized in every conceivable form.
2D shapes are cut from discs and bars. They create an overcut that results from the geometric shape and its waste. The geometric overhang is granulated and returned to the osmium process. Unfortunately, the process is as expensive as the crystalline metal itself. For this reason, the geometric overhang must also be calculated for 2D special designs when calculating the price of jewellery.
The EDM wire with which osmium is cut is approximately the diameter of one hair. The osmium is transferred to the wire at the points where it is cut, so that these quantities of osmium are also unfortunately eliminated and must be paid for by the customer. However, they are extremely low.
3D shapes are created with a 3D object that is modulated using the computer and then built up as a carbon body. The osmium crystallizes on this body, making almost any shape and surface possible.
Please ask for special shapes using the form in the main menu.
