Quality Black Jewellery

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Thursday June 19th, 2008 @ 9:17 AM

Filed under: Piercing

Hey there,

It seems that piercers almost universally say that the black PVD coated steel is total crap and shouldn’t be worn in piercings at all, especially not in fresh ones - I’ve worn this in my ears and septum for a long time with no problems - but if you could shed any light on why this is regarded to be crap, I’d greatly appreciate it.

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A while back I talked to Tom Brazda about this, and the alternative seems to be Niobium jewellery, which is high-quality and safe for fresh piercings (he pierced my lip with a quality black niobium piece he made and my head hasn’t fallen off.. yet), but this presents a problem - it’s pretty much impossible to get a hold of this stuff, even the most simple CBRs, let alone labret posts or anything less common.

So my question is - where the hell can I get a hold of good black niobium jewellery? Any other material that’s high-quality and black would suffice. None of the respted companies like Anatometal seem to carry it, but maybe I just don’t know where to look - can anyone on AskBME help me out?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Ah yes Tom Brazda…All blessings be to he of immense knowledge….For without him I know not where I would be today lol

The issue is this with the jewelry you’re mentioning, its PVD coated. Essentially what this means in long form is: Physical vapor deposition. Essentially that is how the material is created to look black and the major issue with the material is that it can chip quite easily in your mouth, if you change the jewelry often,etc. I’ve seen the jewelry chipped damaged, I’ve seen the integrity of the black coating compromised and slight variance in coloring,etc.

In fresh piercings you have to consider wether the jewelry is Implant Grade specifications or not, which the pvd coated material is not. Now it has Bio-Compatible ratings on it, but still ideally in fresh piercings you should either obtain Implant Grade 316LVM Stainless Steel or Implant Grade Titanium.

Niobium is unfortunately not “Implant Grade” but its used often among the piercing community with alright results….Personally I’m of the mindset though that I’d rather use implant grade materials then anything that’s simply “bio-compatible”…Another issue with Niobium is that its a rather brittle metal from what I recall, so it’s rather hard to work with.

Also just pointing it out here, Anatometal DOES work with Niobium although its set limitations on what sizes,etc it uses. I believe mainly it has to do with the creation of internal threading being an issue within the 14ga and 16ga realm and how brittle/hard Niobium is to work with. If it was external threading its not an issue, but high quality companies that are going to make the jewelry correctly, don’t do external threading. But I’m pretty positive Anatometal works with 12ga and larger niobium barbells,etc. They also make CBR’s in 14ga if I remember correctly,etc.

Since you said Tom made/got/pierced you, are you still in the Toronto area? If so I’d say pay him a visit and he can easily track down what exactly you’re looking for.

But yeah simply put I’m not a fan of the black pvd coated jewelry, at least in piercings that are under a year old. And even then you’ll want to wear them as costume jewelry and not regularly. A Niobium piece of jewelry with a perfect polish is ideally what you’ll want to be looking for.

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