Hi, All - I searched quite a while but didn’t find an answer to this. I have a bracelet with a box clasp which was made by a production house. It is Vermeil and the links have both high polish smooth areas and textured areas. It is beautifully done…but the tongue has lost its springiness. I don’t want to send it back to the fab…they were a nightmare to work with. Was thinking maybe I could put it in the magnetic tumbler to work harden the tongue. Would that work? Would it damage the Vermeil?
Thanks in advance!
Can anyone answer this for me? Thanks.
There will be no noticeable work hardening in a magnetic tumbler. Only a thin surface skin of the metal would be affected. Also, the plating might well be damaged as vermeil is plated only a few microns thick.
Lightly hammering the tongue while continually checking for springiness is probably your best bet.
Either that or replace the tongue with one made of spring gold, which will last a lifetime.
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Thank you, Elliot.
I agree that a tumbler will not work harden sufficiently…I would also like to add that you need to be really careful when polishing Vermeil…I used to have a business and decided one day to brighten up some beautiful earrings I had for sale…I used a polishing cloth and found out that it was a quick way to make the item sterling again in appearance…unless you know how thick the gold layer is be very careful with the cleaning process.
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Question: “How thick is your Gold-Plating?” I use a professional Toronto-based, ‘watch-bezel’ plater just for this process. He tells me that he sets his gauges, for watch plating, at * .5 microns in thickness*. Is this any help to you?
They tell me “It’s 120 mills of gold” and that’s the highest quality. He sent me a lab report.
120 mil would be 0.120" so that’s not likely what they meant. More likely 120 microns, μm, which is 0.120mm, approximately 5mil, 0.005".
small correction 120 millimeters is over 4 inches.
“Mil” is not short for millimeters, it is an older term for thousandths of an inch. You will still find it in use on packaging for plastic bags, where the thickness will be stated in so many “mils.”
sorry - we have been metric now for so long, my brain went there.