Fix rhodium plating

Jewelry Discussion
1

Dear my friends,

I start to rhodium plating and i do this process on yellow gold
stuff, but i have a big problem, when i plating stuff and sell to my
customer after some month appear Wanness in stuff and yellow gold
appear under the white rhodium, i research for a process or method to
fix rhodium plating for long time on my stuff.

Please help me,
Best regards

2

Morteza,

This has been an age old problem. Yellow gold is yellow and to say
you will cover it with rhodium and have it last forever is a
misconception. But, this may help you. If I had a sticky customer who
wanted longer wearability out of the rhodium plating I would make
sure everything is clearly clean in the electro clean solution.

Then I would nickel plate the area you want white…electro clean
and rinse again. Then rhodium over the nickel plating. The rhodium
will only take on the brightness of the metal so make sure the area
is as brite as you can make it. It will last longer and when it does
start to wear off it is white under with the nickel.

Russ

3

Rhodium plating does not last on white gold much less yellow.
Plating is deposited in molecule thickness. I try to talk my
customers out of having their yellow pieces rhodium plated but when
they insist I preplate the piece with nickel and then rhodium. It
leaves a white color longer.

Gary

4

Hi Morteza,

Before becoming a jeweler, I did serious plating work as a graduate
student at a microfabrication lab, so I know a thing or two about
doing thick plating.

Here is the problem: rhodium done in most shop setups is not
conducive to lasting all that long. Even done under ideal
conditions, benchtop setups can really only provide a plating that
lasts about 6 months to a year with normal use. That doesn’t account
for abuse, chemicals and body chemistry of the wearer. This is
really only talking about white gold alloys that are already setup
to kind of mask the fact that the plate is wearing through.
Palladium white wont show for quite some time and nickel white can
show up rather quickly depending on the other alloys in the metal.

Plating on top of yellow gold presents an even bigger challenge
since when it wears in one spot, it is really noticeable.

Standard plating done in the shop is measured in a handful of
microns. What you are asking for is something 10 microns thick or
greater to stand up to serious wear and that is near impossible to
do in the shop. You would need an expensive rectifier that can
provide both constant current or voltage, a plating solution far
more concentrated than you can normally get (most are around 5
grams, you would need something closer to 20) and a cage anode. If
you try it in your setup, going for something that thick will
either, burn, dull or flake. For the expense, it really is not worth
it.

If you are determined to plate yellow gold, then i suggest this link

This is a great resource for electroplating Just browse
the forums and related links and it will give you plenty of insight.

Good luck my friend!

Derek

5

How does the nickel plating affect saw blades or solder flow should
the ring need to be sized or retipped in the future?

6

Are you rhodium plating the whole ring?