Barrel polish a silver bangle with Keum Bo

Can I barrel polish a silver bangle with gold leaf applied by Keum
Bo method?

Hello all

It seems a bit of a cheek for me to come back here after so long
with a technical question but I would really appreciate your
experience and advice here.

I have made a fairly complicated silver bangle of formed wire and
cut sheet. It is already hallmarked and has 4 bezels ready for stone
setting. I have just applied 22ct gold leaf to 3 small leaf motifs
that are solderedalongside the wires and bezels. It was a very
tricky process. I decided to do it that way round rather than gilding
before assembling as I knew the piece would need heating for
soldering many times before completion. Now I’m not sure how to
polish it. I would like to barrel polish first as this would help
with work hardening and give the bangle more ‘spring’ for putting on
and taking off the wrist but I don’t want to damage the gold leaf
after all the trouble it took to apply.

My guess is that it should be alright but I’m afraid to take the
risk.

Help!
Thank you
Collette

Hi Collette,

As no one seems to have answered your posting, ill chip in here and
say a few words.

In all your experience, havnt you ever heard of running an
experiment?, or a trial before doing the real thing? How many times
did you have to try and get your soldering right? So, ill point you
in the right direction. Make a leaf, gild it, barrel it and see what
happens.

If it works ok then you can judge if its safe to barrel the bangle.
If not then have you heard what a glove does? it protects your hands
from what ever. So why not mask your gold with whatever prior to
barrelling? Next, If youve designed a bangle that needs bending to
put on the design is wrong.

Sorry to be hard but sometimes its the only way to get through to
other metal workers what it takes to get it right.

Update us how your test works out
Ted.