Question about Keum Boo. I’ve been doing this technique for several years. My question is about dipping the jewelry piece in Liver of Sulfur after doing the Keum Boo. My gold gets very dark in the liver of sulfur, and it looks terrible.Then I have to redo the Keum Boo process again to get shiner gold, and that means I am using twice the amount of gold than I need. Then I try to just touch up the silver a bit more with a brush dipped in liver of sulfer.
Why is the gold getting dark on me? I only leave the piece in the L.O.S. only long enough to darken the silver, maybe only about 20 seconds. Then I rinse, and dip in water with baking soda to stop the oxidation process, then rinse again.
Yes. Black Max is the worst on Keum Boo. It makes the gold very dark. I won’t use that on Keum Boo again unless I am able to paint the silver around the gold. Black Max is okay with regular gold though. I use that often.
Black Max is much more powerful than liver of sulphur. If you’re going to use that you’ll need to dilute with water.
That’s what I would suggest for liver of sulphur as well. Dilute it. I’d start with a weak solution, experiment and see what happens. My guess is that your liver of sulphur solution is too strong.
Pure gold is technically inert and shouldn’t be affected by liver of sulphur, but somehow the eutectic bonding process of Keum Boo is making your gold react.
I missed that you’re using liver of sulphur gel. That stuff is concentrated. So yes, definitely make it be more diluted next time. How diluted? I’m not sure, but like I said, I’d try making it weak and then strengthen it as necessary. And as you know liver of sulphur works best in hot water. But I’ve had just as much success heating the metal with a hair dryer instead of heating the liver of sulphur solution.
I’m sure that you know this, but another thing that will help is to make sure that your metal is extremely clean. Since you don’t want to scrub it, you can soak it for a bit in hot water and dish soap. Then rinse well to make sure there’s not soap on the surface. After you clean it only touch the metal by the edges or wear rubber gloves.
A test to show that the metal is totally clean is that drops of water will flow evenly across the surface. That’s a sign that the metal is clean and the surface tension has been relieved. If the drops of water ball up or is in clumps that’s a sign that you need to clean it more. The same thing is true with glass. Water will spread evenly over clean glass.
I’ll bet what you’re making is really beautiful and is worth sorting through all of these issues!
Yes, thanks terezi for catching that! You need to rinse in water after every liver of sulphur dip to stop the action.
It’s often best when there’s problems or issues as in this case to build up the oxide coat slowly with multiple dips. A common sequence would be: clean with water & dish soap, rinse with water to remove soap residue, dip in liver of sulphur solution, rinse with water. Repeat that sequence until you get the desired effect.