When shopping for gold jewelry online you will often see necklace chains described as 'Titan Laser Gold', or 'Lasered Titan Gold' without any real explanation of what that means, other than it's apparently good. This article will explain what the process is, what it means to you, and hopefully let you shop with more confidence.
Lasered Titan Gold is actually a registered trademark of Stuller Inc., and refers to their own proprietary process for creating stronger necklace chains. The specifics haven't been revealed but there are two main ingredients:
- The gold itself and
- A giant laser
The Gold
Firstly, the gold used in lasered jewelry has to be formulated a bit differently than normal. This is because laser cutting generates tremendous amounts of heat, so pure gold would literally boil away when exposed to it. It's not clear what alloy is used (as again, this is a proprietary process), but it hardens the gold considerably and raises its melting temperature to the point where it can be worked with lasers. The resulting alloy is actually much harder and stronger than 24 karat pure gold, which means a much stronger chain. Since this is an alloy, you will likely never see a Lasered Titan Gold product that has greater than 14 karat purity. If you do see jewelry labelled as such, it is likely fake and should be reported.
A Giant Laser
Now that you have laser-resistant gold you can cut and weld it however you like. Laser working is common in the jewelry industry, though in the past was reserved for metals that had higher melting points like Platinum and Titanium. The laser allows for far more precise cuts, especially for intricate repetitive cuts like those found in necklace chains. Welds and joins are also far more precise, and because of the temperatures involved, far stronger. The end result is a gold necklace chain that can be worked much finer because of the accuracy of the laser, but at the same time has much greater tensile strength due to the properties of the alloy and the laser welding process.
Is it right for you?
That really depends on your own tastes, needs, and buying strategies. If you are buying gold as an investment or for value the 14k purity likely isn't going to impress you. However the real appeal of Lasered Titan Gold is in its strength and durability; according to Stuller the chain is now 'four times more stretch resistant than ever before'. This means you can hang heavier pendants on even longer gold chains, or just get a normal sized gold chain and be more confident that it won't break.