Colored Stones
|
|
|
Smashing tungsten, Scott Kay intros cobalt bridal
By Teresa Novellino
October 30, 2009
|
| Scott Kay's "SK Cobalt" collection includes men's wedding bands, including, from left, these "Unity" and "Braid" rings. |
|
|
New York--Designer Scott Kay has presented a new cobalt alloy called "SK Cobalt" in a men's wedding band collection, saying he was inspired by the bright white look, durability and affordability of the alloy--and also by anger, because his research into another lower-priced bridal band material, tungsten carbide, showed it was much less durable than claimed.
"SK Cobalt" is the name Scott Kay has given to his trademarked version of BioBlu27, a patented alloy that was developed through what the involved parties say is an unprecedented partnership between a design company--Scott Kay--a metal and jewelry manufacturer, Spectore Corp., and a steel company, Carpenter Technology Corp., which manufactures some 450 alloys for use in everything from the aerospace and automotive industries to consumer products such as watches.
BioBlu27, a metal matrix composite consisting of cobalt, chromium and molybdenum, will be available to any manufacturer interested in using it. Scott Kay's own collection has already been soft launched and will be marketed in earnest in coming months, he said.
"There's going to be a serious roll-out for this in the fourth quarter," Kay told a group of editors and guests in a presentation on the new collection held Thursday at the Desmond Tutu Center in New York.
Average prices for a band are about $250 to $300, with the simplest pieces starting at $125. Those with gold or diamonds are priced on the higher end of the spectrum. The company has already developed a collection for jewelry chain Helzberg Diamonds, which is calling it "Brute Cobalt/BioBlu27."
Right now, Kay says he is only able to resize cobalt alloy rings up by one size, which can be accomplished through heating the metal at high temperatures. Some of his bands already combine the cobalt alloy with inlaid gold and Kay says he can and will combine it with other precious metals. The designer also says casting the metal is also possible. Looking ahead, Kay says he plans to create more fashion pieces using the new "contemporary metal," and he is also looking into setting stones with the cobalt alloy.
Another next step is to put together a sales training video that is "100 percent accurate," as the collection heads into other jewelry stores, Kay said.
The introduction of a new bridal metal is significant for Kay, who was big on promoting palladium a few years ago, when precious metal prices started going up drastically. Scott Kay's palladium collection, which is priced on average at about $600 to $700 for a wedding band, now accounts for about three-quarters of that segment of the business, he says.
Taking on tungsten carbide
In introducing the metal, Kay spent a fair amount of time discussing tungsten carbide, a metal matrix composite which is also used in men's wedding bands and fashion jewelry, and which is priced similarly to the cobalt alloy.
Saying he didn't want to name names, Kay described how disturbed and angry he was after doing some Internet research on the material. His findings included a YouTube video, as well as advertising that described tungsten carbide as being "indestructible."
It is a claim that Kay and the metallurgical experts that he has partnered with at Carpenter dispute. A Carpenter official who was part of the presentation described it as a metal matrix composite that is brittle and known to have defects.
Kay says this means it is not a good material for a wedding band, which is worn every day.
"I have no problem with tungsten carbide. I have a problem with [anything less than] 100 percent disclosure in its usage for bridal," he said.
As part of his presentation, Kay quite literally bashed the durability of tungsten carbide as a bridal material, taking a tungsten carbon ring and smashing it against a piece of marble tile on the floor where it lay in shards, broken into several pieces.
To demonstrate the metal's shortcomings further, Kay called up one petite jewelry editor to the front of a room where a mini-workbench was set up and asked her to take a hammer to a tungsten carbide ring he wore on his hand. After a few whacks, the ring cracked. Kay's own similar whacks on SK Cobalt, gold, palladium and platinum revealed that while they might bend a little or lot, they didn't break.
Kay also showed slides, magnified by 2000 times, featuring close-up images of platinum, 14-karat gold, BioBlu27 and tungsten carbide. Unlike the others, the tungsten carbide close-up revealed gaps--which Kay said is the key to why it is so brittle.
Kay said several times that he didn't want to be viewed as introducing one product and putting down another, and that the key reason he was discussing tungsten carbide at all was because he feels the claims about its durability could damage the jewelry industry.
"I gave everybody a heads-up in June that I'm going public with this," Kay said. "We have to know and understand what people are buying and what we are selling."
|
|
More Colored Stones
A man believed to be the mastermind behind the slaying of tsavorite founder Campbell Bridge in Kenya last summer was arrested in Nairobi, according to a report issued early Tuesday from the International Colored Gemstone Association. Read More
|
Daily News
Get breaking news from the industry's premier information source.
Small multi video player located on right rail of NJN site
|
Save
E-mail
Print
Most Popular
RSS
Reprints
