When you wear your most loved jewelry every day, you cannot escape the need for occasional repairs. Fatigue and erosion are unavoidable in precious metals. You can, and should, take care to store and clean your jewelry properly to keep it in the best possible condition. Nevertheless, repairs will be necessary to restore it to its highest quality and durability in the long run.
When the time comes to repair your jewelry, whether due to natural decline or an unexpected breakage, you’ll need to find someone to mend and revive it. When you invest in fine jewelry, you should trust only a qualified and accomplished professional for even the seemingly simplest of repairs.
How Long Does Jewelry Repair Take?
When you search “jewelry repair near me,” you’ll receive pages of results to sift through, many of which will advertise fast repairs. When your engagement ring, wedding band, or another piece of everyday jewelry is broken, speed and convenience are tempting proposals. In jewelry repair, however, speed is not always a benefit.
Jewelers who are capable of completing high-quality, fine jewelry repairs are in high demand but small supply. These industry experts are likely to have hundreds of repairs to complete each month. To meticulously repair each piece by hand, you should expect an average jewelry repair time of 7-21 days.
Tool Marks
When a qualified repair technician works with your jewelry, their tools and techniques will be faithfully cared for and chosen precisely for your item. A less experienced individual may use tools that are too hard for your metal or of lower quality. All handmade jewelry will show evidence of its unique artistry. It should not, however, show evidence of its repairs.
Visible Seams
If your gold jewelry has to be cut or soldered, an industry veteran will not leave behind visible seams. Rushed repairs, not enough solder, over-polishing, and other issues may all be to blame for visible seams in a gold ring. Not only is this unsightly, but it weakens your ring and makes it susceptible to breaking.
Platinum is more durable than gold, which also makes it more challenging to work with. Seams in platinum are more commonly accepted, though there are seamless solders available for platinum that may be an option for some repairs.
Different Width
When sizing or resizing your ring, the shank (the bottom of the band nearest your palm) is cut. When sizing up a ring, in most instances metal will be added to keep the width consistent around the band. If your repair technician stretched your ring without adding additional metal, you might notice that the shank of your ring is thinner than the rest. While this may be part of the initial design of some rings, you should beware of this in a resized ring that was previously even all the way around your finger.
Can You Avoid Bad Jewelry Repairs?
Before you trust someone with your heirloom-quality jewelry, ask them for evidence of their past work. A skilled craftsperson should be able to show you examples of their custom and repair work and provide proof of their experience. We always recommend asking friends and family for referrals and reading reviews from past customers online. If a jeweler has done excellent work in the past, their customers will be excited to recommend them to you.
Avoid Any Problems by Buying Quality Jewelry
Shop with us a Jackson Square Fine Jewelers for the finest jewelry in the Redwood City area!
Trusted Expert Jewelry Repair in Redwood City
The expert staff at Jackson Square Fine Jewelers are proud to be part of the community in Redwood City where we bring our years of experience. We sell jewelry to last a lifetime so our customers can pass it down for generations. We also offer expert repairs and restoration services for our jewelry as well as jewelry bought elsewhere. If you’re seeking expert jewelry repair in Redwood City that you can trust, we’d love to have you join our extended family of delighted customers.
Contact us here.