Archive for June, 2015
This article was written by Michael Fox, owner of Fox Jewelry, a business dedicated to the sale of Masonic Rings, Masonic accessories and other fraternal jewelry.
Fox Jewelry offers the largest selection of Masonic Rings and other Masonic Jewelry anywhere.
What is Rhodium?
Rhodium is an extremely rare metal that can cost ten times the price of gold or more. Rhodium is general not considered a feasible material to create jewelry from because it’s stressed and brittle, very difficult to work with properly for jewelry making, its price is also terribly volatile. Rhodium makes a wonderful plating for jewelry because it is glitteringly dazzlingly and white and has a mirror like finish. It is like chrome, but much whiter and has the most reflectivity of all metals. Rhodium plating make diamonds look brighter and better because it is so bright and dazzles much like diamonds. From a couple of feet away and under most lighting conditions it is hard to see exactly where the stones end and the metal begins. Nothing sets off a diamond like rhodium plating does. Most white gold jewelry right now is rhodium plated. However the rhodium is only a plating and consequently it will wear off eventually and require re-plating.
How long will rhodium plating last?
That is a difficult question to answer. First of all it depends on whether the item is a ring that suffers a great deal of wear or a pin or broach that receives almost no contact. It will also depend on whether you wear the ring constantly. The life of the plating is also dependent upon to other extremely important and controllable factors.
1). How good is the quality of the plating?
High quality plating performed by a competent specialty plating shop will endure far longer than a thin layer of plating applied from a teacup of contaminated plating solution inside the back room of a jewelry shop.
2). What color is the underlying gold?
When the white gold underlying the rhodium plating is a nice acceptable color, you can go a long time between re-plating. When the color of the underlying ring is slightly yellowish, more frequent re-plating will likely be necessary because the item will appear poorly much sooner. If the underlying material is strongly yellow or is actually yellow gold, the contrast will be more dramatic and re-plating will be requited much more frequently. You can get your yellow gold jewelry rhodium plated, but if the piece experiences significant wear, the good appearance may last only a short time even if the rhodium plating quality is good, and almost no time if the plating is poor.
A note about Rhodium price volatility. Rhodium is never mined for its own because it is too rare to be economically feasible, rather it’s a minor by product from platinum mining and refining. When platinum is in high demand and a lot of it is being mined, a lot of rhodium is available and its price can decline to about the same price as gold, but when platinum mining is down, rhodium is virtually unavailable and becomes very costly (over $12,000) per ounce at one point in 2011 when gold was well under $1,000 per ounce).
Conclusion: When possible, try to make sure that the white gold jewelry you are buying is a quality shade of white before plating so that there is going to be a little contrast when the rhodium plating gets thin. If your jewelry store can’t rhodium plate the jewelry well enough for an acceptable life, try to find another jewelry or perhaps a specialty plaiting shop that can.
This article was written by Mike Fox, owner of Fox Jewelry. They are the leading marketer of Masonic Rings and have the largest of selection of Masonic Rings and other fraternal jewelry anywhere. We welcome your visit to our online store at: Fox Jewelry. Feel free to contact us at 712-251-8053 or email us at: [email protected].
Fox Jewelry
3821 Chippewa Ct.
Sioux City, IA 51104
712-251-8053
www.masonicrings.net
www.masonicjewelryblog.net
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This article was written by Michael Fox, owner of Fox Jewelry, a business dedicated to the sale of Masonic Rings, Masonic accessories and other fraternal jewelry.
Fox Jewelry offers the largest selection of Masonic Rings and other Masonic Jewelry anywhere.
White gold is an alloy of gold and at least one white metal, usually nickel, manganese or palladium. Like yellow gold, the purity of white gold is described in karats. White gold’s properties vary depending on the metals and proportions used.
Consequently, white gold alloys may be used for many different purposes; while a nickel alloy is hard durable and therefore good for custom luxury diamond wedding rings, pins and Ear Piercing Jewellery, gold-palladium alloys are soft, pliable and good for white gold gemstone settings, sometimes with other metals like copper, silver, and platinum for weight and ruggedness, although this often requires specialized goldsmiths. description white gold is utilized very loosely in the industry to explain karat gold alloys possessing whitish hue. Harry Chadent says, it is a common misconception that the color of the rhodium plating, which is seen on many commercial pieces, is really the color of white gold. The term “white” covers a considerable spectrum of hues that borders or overlaps pale yellow, tinted brown, in addition to very pale rose. The jewelry industry often conceals these off-white colors by rhodium plating.
A common white gold formulation consists of 90% gold and 10% nickel. Copper can be added to increase malleability.
The alloys used in jewelry industry are gold–palladium–silver and gold–nickel–copper–zinc. Palladium and nickel work as primary bleaching agents for gold; zinc acts as a secondary bleaching agent to attenuate the color of copper.
The nickel utilized in some white gold alloys may cause an reaction when worn over long periods (also notably on some wrist-watch casings). This reaction, typically a minor skin irratation, occurs in about one in eight people of this, don’t use nickel inside their white gold formulations.
Colored golds can be separated to 3 groups.
Alloys with silver and copper in a number of proportions, producing white, yellow, green and red golds; typically malleable alloys.
Intermetallic compounds, producing blue and purple golds, along with other colors. These are typically brittle but can be used as gems and inlays.
Pure 100% gold is 24 karat, so all colored golds are lower than this, with the common being 18K, 14K, and 9K.