{"id":1887,"date":"2018-10-18T16:26:14","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T20:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/?p=1887"},"modified":"2018-10-18T21:45:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T01:45:09","slug":"why-your-prongs-keep-breaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/why-your-prongs-keep-breaking\/","title":{"rendered":"WHY YOUR PRONGS KEEP BREAKING"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Why<\/div>\n

We had a customer come into the store complaining about a broken prong on her diamond engagement ring<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

“It broke again!”<\/h2>\n

\nShe had the ring for only 8 months and already had 3 of the prongs fixed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nFor some reason, they kept breaking, bending and snapping off the mounting.<\/p>\n

\nShe wanted to know why it happened and how to stop them from breaking.<\/p>\n

“Why are the prongs breaking?”<\/h2>\n

\nSome people are naturally hard on their jewelry. Some people never take their rings off and beat the crap out of them. So normally, I tend to believe it’s the customers fault at first, and that they hit them and didn’t realize it<\/strong>. Customers are always saying things like “It just broke by itself!<\/strong>” Yeah… Right!<\/p>\n

Is it a bad mounting?<\/h2>\n

\nGranted, every now and then there will be a “lemon<\/strong>” mounting (just like cars<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

\nThat’s a mounting that just happened to get a bad casting. It can happen<\/strong>. Air pockets and bubbles get into the gold. Alloys don’t mix right<\/strong>. It’s rare, but could happen.<\/p>\n

\nSometimes it’s also the jewelers fault<\/strong>. Maybe they carved too much out of the prong while setting the stone? Those weak spots can cause a prong to snap off, sure.<\/p>\n

\nSometimes jewelers catch a prong on the polishing wheel while buffing it. That can cause small cracks in the prongs and make them break easier.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nMaybe their torch wasn’t hot enough? Maybe the ring had stress marks?<\/strong> That can make it become brittle and weak. A good inspection of the ring and prongs with a microscope<\/a> or a 10x jeweler’s loupe<\/a> could normally spot these indications and warning signals.<\/p>\n

Even dirt could erode prongs.<\/h2>\n

\nIt could also be the fact that the customer didn’t clean their rings enough.<\/p>\n

\nDirty rings could actually erode and eat away at the metal prongs and gold. So keeping your rings clean could actually prolong their lifespan<\/strong> (Get yourself an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\nWe tell customers all of these things that could be making the prongs become weak and snap off…<\/p>\n

“No!” She’s not buying it!<\/h2>\n

\nShe says she regularly brings her rings in for cleaning and inspection all the time. She takes good care of them. She doesn’t hit them. “It’s happened 3 times already…<\/strong>“<\/p>\n

\nFinally we ask her what she does for a living…<\/p>\n

\nShe says that she works in a laundromat<\/strong>.
\n“A laundromat? Does that mean you work with bleach?<\/strong>“<\/p>\n

\nShe smiles and says…<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Every single day!”<\/h2>\n

\n“BINGO!”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nThat’s why her prongs are breaking off! It’s bleach.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bleach will absolutely kill your gold.<\/h2>\n

\nIf it comes in contact with gold, it can weaken the mounting, pit your band, eat away at the prongs and virtually destroy <\/strong>a beautiful diamond ring.<\/p>\n

So heed this warning: DO NOT MIX BLEACH AND GOLD!<\/h2>\n

\nStay away from any contact with bleach and other harsh chemicals.<\/p>\n

\nRemove your rings if you do laundry…<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nOnce our customer started taking her rings off at work, she never had another broken prong problem again.<\/p>\n

It was that easy.<\/h2>\n

\nSo if you have prong problems, say NO to BLEACH<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

\nCheers! :)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had a customer come into the store complaining about a broken prong on her diamond engagement ring. “It broke again!” She had the ring for only 8 months and already had 3 of the [Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engagement","category-jewelry","category-repairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewelry-secrets.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}