What Actually Broke, and What Each One Needs

People describe almost everything as "my chain broke", but four different failures come across the counter and they are not the same job.

• A link has snapped. The chain parts somewhere along its length. This is a soldering repair at the broken joint. On a solid rope, box or curb link the repair is straightforward because the stress is spread across the whole link. On a hollow chain it is harder, because hollow links crush rather than stretch and the metal at the break is thin.
• The clasp has gone. The chain is intact but will not stay closed, or it opened on its own and you nearly lost it. In our own service records the large majority of bracelet and chain repairs brought in are worn or broken clasps, not snapped links. A clasp is a moving part and it wears out first. It is usually replaced rather than repaired.
• The ring no longer fits. Fingers change over years, after pregnancy, and between summer and winter. A plain band resizes easily. A ring with stones set all the way round, or with an engraved pattern that runs continuously, is harder and sometimes cannot be resized more than a size without disturbing the setting.
• A stone moves when you press it. The claws holding it have worn down. This needs re tipping, and it is the one repair on this list that is urgent. A stone that is loose today is a stone that is gone next month, and replacing a lost natural diamond costs far more than re tipping the claws that were holding it.

Will I Lose Gold Weight in the Repair?

This is the question people actually want answered and rarely ask out loud, so here it is plainly.

A repair does involve a small amount of gold. Solder is itself a gold alloy, so joining a broken link adds a little metal rather than removing it. Filing and polishing the joint afterwards removes a little. On a normal chain or clasp repair the net change in weight is small enough that it does not show on a counter scale that a customer is watching, and on a resize the direction depends on which way you are going: sizing a ring down removes a piece of the shank, sizing it up adds metal.

The part you should insist on, anywhere in Nagpur and not only with us, is that the piece is weighed in front of you before it goes in and weighed in front of you when it comes back, and that any gold added for sizing up is billed as gold at the prevailing rate rather than buried in a single lump figure. A jeweller who will not weigh the piece in front of you is telling you something.

What It Costs

If you bought the piece at Londe Jewellers Gold & Diamonds, repair and polishing are free, for as long as you own it. That is not a promotion with an end date. Ring resizing is free within 30 days of purchase, up to two sizes up or down.

If the piece was bought elsewhere, we still take it in. The charge depends on the metal added, the labour and the piece, so it is quoted to you before the work starts and itemised on the bill rather than given as one round number. We do not quote repair charges on this page, because a figure printed on a website cannot see your piece and any number here would be a guess dressed up as a price.

How Long It Takes

Simple work is same day or next day. A clasp replacement or a single solder on a solid chain is usually the fastest. Resizing is typically a day or two because the joint has to be finished and polished properly rather than rushed. Re tipping claws and any work that involves resetting a stone takes longer, because the stone has to come out and go back under magnification. Festival weeks and the wedding season are the exception, when everything queues, so if a piece is needed for a specific date bring it in early rather than the week before.

What to Bring

• The piece itself, and any part that broke off it. A missing link or a detached clasp is useful even if it looks unusable.
• The original bill if you still have it. It is not required to get a repair done. It helps, because it records the purity and the original weight, and it settles any question about what the piece was before it went in.
• Nothing else. You do not need an appointment, and you do not need to know what the repair is called. Describe what happened and hand it over the counter.

When Repair Is the Wrong Answer

Sometimes it is not worth it, and a jeweller who never says so is not being straight with you. Repair is the wrong answer when a hollow chain has broken in several places, because the metal has thinned along its whole length and fixing one break simply moves the next break somewhere else. It is also the wrong answer when you no longer wear the piece at all. In that case exchanging it against something you will actually wear puts the full gold value to work instead of spending money restoring something that goes back in the locker. Our gold exchange carries no deduction on the metal, so the comparison is an honest one to make at the counter.

Where to Bring It

Any of our four Nagpur showrooms takes repairs, at Sitabuldi, Gokulpeth, Manish Nagar and Nandanvan. All four are open 11 AM to 8:30 PM. Londe Jewellers Gold & Diamonds has been repairing what it sells, and plenty that it did not sell, in Nagpur since 1989.

Common Questions