Old Masters
Craftsmen
Metallurgist
Allen Parsons
The biggest mining companies in the world beat a path to Alan Parsons’ small laboratory cum workshop in the West Australian suburb of Welshpool. For it is here that the 65 year old metallurgist spins a little platinum crucible weighing exactly 140 grams.
Finished to atomic tolerances, each egg cup-sized crucible costs $7,500. Platinum, one of the heaviest of the elements, melts at precisely 1,769.4C at sea level. Inside a crucible, a sample of ore can be dissolved, then cooled and subjected to a process of analysis called X-Ray Florescence.
Nowhere else in the world is the XRF process used so extensively.
Alan Parsons’ platinum crucibles are a vital component in determining the precise mineral composition – and therefore the price – of every ton of the billions of tons of ore the companies dig out of the ground annually and ship to global markets.
A Finely-crafted alloy with precise composition is integral to the form & function of the jewellery. Old Masters’ precious metals are developed uniquely, every time.
Known as The Professor, his work for Rio Tinto, BHP-Billiton and a dozen others is his bread and butter. But it’s to The Professor’s intimate knowledge of metallurgy that Craig Peters turns to provide the most complex and finely-crafted alloys used for jewellery anywhere in the world.
No two pieces are the same. Each piece is constructed of alloys whose components are measured to five decimal places, the properties of hardness and malleability dependent on the extent to which Mr Peters must heat, bend and shape to hold the stones.
Working in conjunction with artist Brian Pratt and Jeweller Peters, The Professor must look first at the proposed design and construction of the piece, then produce an alloy of precisely the right combination of gold, silver, platinum and, as a hardening agent, iridium – itself one of the rarest of the platinum metals, and never used in mass-produced jewellery.
It may take thirty hours or more just to mould the metal. Any miscalculation in the alloy percentages can ruin the work at the very end.
As Old Masters, we are technically uninhibited & free of all external parameters. We simply design and craft the ultimate masterpieces, sparing absolutely no cost.