I have a friend who purchased a bracelet at a second hand place. It
appears to be silver with gold plating, but there are no stamps or
trademarks. It is quite pretty with some fancy engraving and it looks
quite old.
Our question is:
How can we remove the rest of the gold plating without losing the
engraving?
Is there something that is relatively easy as well?
Polishing would work except it could damage the engraving.
Thanking you ahead.
In the -12 C (10 F) cold, our high for the day, with snow and more
snow on roads made icy from the freezing rain last night.
polish with a soft white bristle brush on the flexshaft with rouge
or zam. The bristles will not blur the edges of engraving much if you
go carefully and lightly
A possible way to remove gold plating from silver:
Carefully anneal the whole piece to almost red heat, then pickle.
The gold soaks into the silver when heated and disappears. Polish by
scrubbing with a fine brass wire brush using soap or bi-carb as a
lubricant. This will not be your brilliant buffing type polish, what
it does is burnish the surface, the bristles reach into the
engravings and crevices producing a satiny shine without removing any
metal at all. It can be improved by rubbing lightly with a silver
cloth.
If you cannot heat the bracelet because of heat-sensitive stones,
springs in the clasp, possible lead solder in the construction etc,
then electrolytic stripping may work but I have little knowledge of
the best way to do that.