Gold and silver plating - regulations

Hi everyone,

I’m intending to buy a gold and silver plate unit to plate my brass
jewellery. I was told that to form a barrier on the brass pieces and
for the gold plating last I should do a nickel plate first on them
and after gold plate. Does anyone know if this procedure is safe? I’m
just concern about the regulations and having nickel on my products.

Thanks in advance,
Melissa

Unless you really want to do this I would suggest sending your
plating items to a company like Red Sky Plating
Red Sky Plating Doing quality plating takes
more than a kit from one of the jewelry supply houses. You will have
no way to assess how thick or adherent your plating is and it is very
easy to contaminate plating baths resulting in less than optimum
results.

James Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts

Thank you everyone for all your suggestions on the antique mirror. I
am waiting for it to be mailed to me so I can get a better idea of
what needs done. I will look it over well and if it seems to be too
much for me, I will definitely take it to get it professionally
repaired & for sure will be sending it out for the plating.

After reading through all of your suggestions and the entire “Midas
Plating” book, I will take all of your advice & will stick to using
my plating station for pen plating applications, small charms items &
for my copper electroforming, which was really the reason I made the
purchase in the first place.

I had no idea that most of the solutions were so caustic, (more so
than the typical acids I have around here). I even though I have a
proper fume hood I am not really sure I want arsenic in my studio.

James, your advice about wanting a better controlled plating
thickness is well taken, Thanks! I really do want the end result to
be perfect and unquestionable in quality. Why go to the trouble of
making the repair if it is not done right and done well.

Teresa