A simple guide to upcycling Jewellery

Jewellery upcycling offers many benefits to the planets, your wallet and more importantly helps you to treasure found memories.

An old jewellery box can be a treasure trove for sweet, forgotten memories but also gather in dust. Whether you have family heirlooms, gifts or pieces of jewellery that you don’t find yourself being able to wear anymore, upcycling is a great choice. It allows you to hold on to the sentiment behind a piece while turning it into something you absolutely love and can wear to remind you of that every day. Here is a simple guide to jewellery upcycling with details of what to do with old jewellery and how it can be repurposed.

The benefits of upcycling Jewellery

Aside from being able to re-purpose jewellery into something more to your taste, upcycling prevents the need to mine the earth for further precious metals thus reducing environmental harm. It can also provide a fix for broken jewellery made from precious metals as they can be melted and remolded into something new in a process known as re-casting. An excellent way to recycle old jewellery.

Polishing Old Jewellery

Of course there is also the obvious cleaning that can be done to restore beautiful diamond jewellery. As the saying goes, “if ain't broke, don’t fix it”. If there is a piece of jewellery that you oh so love but can’t for stubborn, set-in marks or scuffs, consider getting your jewellery professionally cleaned or polished. Follow our guide on how to clean your diamond jewellery to learn how to clean old jewellery yourself at home, including the cleaning solutions you can use and for details of how to request our professional cleaning services.

Upcycled Engagement Rings

There is no better way to ask someone to be a part of your family than to pass down a ring that has been cherished in your family for decades. The ultimate sign of commitment. Old engagement rings can also be melted or re-casted to take form a new era, resembling your partnership whilst also cherishing the past.

The process of melting Jewellery

Precious metals such as gold can be re-casted into something new by a highly skilled goldsmith using fire. It requires a small dish known as a crucible to hold your gold and heating it to over 600 degrees celsius using a welding torch. It is at this temperature that the gold turns into a molten liquid and is then poured into a basic mould where it will cool. The preliminary moulding process will create a partially solidified block of gold which is still malleable and stretched to be made thinner and longer until sufficient to create a desired band. All that is left is to file the jewellery down and polish for a shiny new finish.

It is probably worth mentioning that for gold jewellery below 24 karats, re-casting doesn’t provide much cost saving and is rather difficult. This is due to the mix of different metals used in the production of lower karat gold resulting in different melting points and a risky choice to re-cast as there is no certainty over the quality of the outcome.

If upcycling Jewellery isn’t right for you

If your upcycling jewellery isn’t a feasible option for you due to reasons discussed above, it's also possible for you to recreate your old diamond jewellery with our ring design service.

We also offer a wide range of vintage inspired jewellery reminiscent of the past for any jewellery you might wish to replace. For help, contact one of our expert team.