Dear All,
I’ve been fighting the color match thing with chains since the start
of my career. I was told at one point that the reason the brand new
14k yellow gold chains looked so high karat was because the chains
were acid bombed during manufacturing to even out the appearance and
bring the high karat color to the surface. I can not vouch for the
accuracy of this statement, so don’t quote that as fact.
I hate that when I purchase 14k gold chain, it doesn’t match my high
polish 14k pendants. I’m not interested in plating my pendant to
match the chains, so I usually end up polishing all of my new chain
stock to remove the high karat color and make them match better.
Knowing the danger to myself and the new chains, this is not my
favorite task. Sometimes, if I really don’t have the time or
inclination to machine polish, I’ll wet my fingers with baking soda
and water to make a paste and run the chain through my hands. This
slight abrasive will lessen the color difference, though generally it
doesn’t work as well as actually polishing the chain. What do the
rest of you do? Can you tumble chain and get a similar effect to
polishing? I’ve only got a rotary tumbler, and I suspect I’d have a
big knotted mess if I tried this. Perhaps a vibratory tumbler would
work?
I’ve seen this high karat color on new 14k chain from a variety of
chain companies, so I suspect it is a fairly wide industry practice.
What do the rest of you do?
Take care all.
Brenda
Nesheim Fuller Design