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You may have heard of gold plating before, and you may have even had some of your pieces plated again. These methods will keep your pieces of jewelry bright and shining for a long time. In addition, plating is also used to change the color of pieces of jewelry. Stay with us in this article, to get more information on different types of plating, the resulting colors and the price of this process.
What Is Gold Plating
Plating is actually adding a new outer layer to different pieces of jewelry to make them look brighter after long use. Stay with us in this article, to get more information on different types of plating, the resulting colors and the price of this process.
On the other hand, there are sometimes pieces of imitation jewelry that just look similar to jewelry, and only experts can distinguish them from one another.
However, it should be noted that plating is not just for pieces of jewelry and it might be used for making decorative dishes shine again. Plating is usually more durable in case of decorative dishes.
From the point of view of chemistry, the electricity flow plays an important role. Electrolytic plating is a procedure in which the cations holding positive ions create a layer on gold that makes gold resistant to abrasives and oxidation.
Everything about Gold Plating
You may think that gold plating is similar to washing or suspending pieces of jewelry in a mixture of water and gold, which will result in a change in the color of pieces of jewelry. This may be a correct definition, but it is not the only use of gold plating. In other words, there are different types of gold plating, each of which has a special goal and only one of them is done for changing the color of pieces of jewelry.
Different types of plating follow different purposes which are as follows:
1- Decorative Plating
2- Alloy Plating
3- Acid Plating
4- Sulfite Plating
Different methods of plating are done due to different purposes and the final color may be different when applying different methods. All in all, plating process usually results in colors such as rose gold, champagne, pink, red, yellow, green and white. We will review these plating methods and discuss their aspects in the following.
What Are the Different Uses of Decorative Gold Plating?
This type of plating is titled as cyanide plating which is used for both dishes and pieces of jewelry and has a thickness of 0.5 to 3 microns for objects and 0.75 to 2.5 for pieces of jewelry. This plating method is performed through several steps.
Finishing Gold: In the first step of cyanide plating, the underneath of each piece is made bright and shining using an alternator with a cotton or hair cycles. Since this method is used for making old pieces of jewelry shining again, a kind of oil titled as «Penza Oil» is used for removing deep scratches. To remove deep scratches, special polish oil and also special brushes will be needed.
During the finishing step, a thin layer of gold will be removed from gold, so that all scratches and lines will go away and there will be a completely flat and even surface. This thin layer is so trivial that comes to a total of 100 milligrams in every 5 grams.
2- Washing up: After the first step, the underneath of the piece of jewelry will be washed with a powder and hot water, as a result of which any type of dirt and grease will go away. In the next step, the piece will be placed in a combination of distilled water and potassium or sodium cyanide and will be washed after a short while.
3- Rinsing: In this step, the underneath of the piece that will be used for plating gold will be laced in a liter of 100-grade distilled water combined with Concentrated sulfuric acid In the next level, the piece will be dried in a special manner using sawdust. Sawdust prevents gold from getting tarnished or dark.
4- Gold Plating in the Plating spa: In this stage, the piece of jewelry will be placed in a glass or metal container, that is covered with a PVC layer. After placing the piece of jewelry in this container, they will pour an electrolyte solution on it which is actually a solution with a liquid more conductivity than pure water to make which conductive, sulfates or chlorides are used. The piece of jewelry shouldn’t stay any longer than 30 seconds inside the electrolyte solution, because it will make the piece look dull.
The product of this plating method can be in green, white, yellow and a range of pink to red as a result of which this is one the most popular plating methods.
Why Is Alloy Plating Useful?
This plating method is famous due to the durable color it gives the pieces of jewelry. This plating method is used not only for jewelry but also in medicine, aviation and even Soldering. long durability and resistance of this plating method may be due to the oxidation of the metal surface as a result of contact with Atmospheric pollutions. As a result of oxidation, a layer will be formed on the metal surface that makes the meal even more resistant.
Acid Plating and the Wide Range of Colors
The most important advantage of acid gold plating in comparison with other methods of plating is the durability of color in pieces of jewelry. Furthermore, the wide range of colors achieved through this plating method has a wide variety that includes a range of yellow,orange, green and purple.
Sulfite Plating for Bright Pieces of Jewelry
This plating method adds a reasonable thickness to the surface of the pieces of jewelry. In this method, a sulfite plating solution will be used that contains alkaline sulfite of gold, conductive electrolyte and at least some free alkaline sulfite. In this method, PH plays an important role as well. In this plating method, the thickness of the new layer reaches 8 microns per minute, as a result of which the outcome of this plating method will be very thin and bright.
Plating Is Not Just for Gold
We have already discussed different plating methods, and should be mentioned that gold is not the only metal to be plated. Other metals such as silver, copper, brass and nickel can be plated as well. As a result, the metals become more resistant to blows and damages. Using this method, not only these metals shine brightly, but they also become more resistant to blows and damages.
How Durable Is Plating?
How durable plating is, is the question that occurs to many and has no certain answer. How durable plating is depends on how much and how carefully the piece is used. Some pieces of jewelry are usually in-use and may be in contact with detergents. As an example, wedding rings or earrings are among these frequently-used pieces which need to be plated every few months.
How thick the plated layer is, affects the durability as well. The more the thickness of the layer, the later it will be lost. However, together with the rise in the gold price, plating thickness has decreased and it is necessary to repeat the plating procedure more frequently.
Oxidation is among the corrosive factors that should be taken into account as well. Oxygen is always in contact with the surface of pieces of jewelry, and leads to gradual tarnishing of these pieces. Thu, we suggest that if you plan to use your pieces of jewelry scarcely, put them in a plastic bag and push the air out of the bag. This way, the possibility of oxidation will decrease as well.
Plating may sometimes hurt precious gemstones, therefore, it is better to remove the gemstone before plating and fix it on the piece of jewelry after the plating process.
Gold Plating on jewelry imitations
Many pieces of imitation look very similar to authentic pieces and only experts can distinguish them from one another. In many pieces of jewelry, you may notice the term «GP», which stands for «Gold Plated».
This is where people should be careful about buying imitations instead of authentic pieces. As a result, we suggest that you but pieces of jewelry from reliable stores who are observed by the Gold and Jewelry Union.
How Much Does Gold Plating Cost?
Many factors with which we are in daily contact, may hurt our pieces of jewelry. Chlorine is one of these elements and is widely used in swimming pools. Thus, we suggest that you don’t use your pieces of jewelry when swimming. Mercury is also among the damaging elements with corrosive properties and upon any accidental contact with gold, will have corrosive properties. don’t leave mercury-in-glass thermometers next to your pieces of jewelry to prevent damages if the the thermometer breaks by accident.
Some people believe that since acids brighten some metals, they can be good choices for making gold shiny again. Acids, however, can damage gold. Using perfumes, creams and contact with any types of cosmetics can hurt the color of pieces of jewelry. Finally, sweating can make the pieces of gold tarnish in the long run.
Gold plating is a simple remedy that is not hard to be performed and makers the pieces of jewelry shiny again. Gold plating price is different for pieces with different weights. It is important to remember that gold plating is not an expensive process and if the weight of piece doubles, the plating price won’t.
White gold has once been yellow, but has become white as a result getting mixed with other metals such as nickel and palladium, and being plated with rhodium. As a result, the price of white gold plating is higher than that of yellow gold. Yellow gold is usually plated with 24K gold and shines very brightly.
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed gold plating and mentioned different types of it. With regard to the fact that the gold alloy is composed of several metals and also gold, it is necessary to reach the appropriate color through the plating procedure. In general, there are 4 types of plating each of which is done in a different way. We also discussed the factors that cause the gold to lose its luster, and mentioned the gold plating price. To buy durable pieces of jewelry we suggest you visit EG jewelry store.
