sterling silver jewelry care

[Juliette N.]

Hello,
I'm creating a post because I need a little advice.
Indeed, I'm creating a small collection with rings with engraving (principally flare cutting) and flush settings. I plan to start with a few pieces in 925 silver (and 18k gold on order).
My question is: do you think it's better to plate my engraved silver pieces with white gold or rhodium plating to avoid oxidation?
But I heard once that plating is not recommended in engraving (maybe just spend a quick extra cotton pendant wheel at the end without polishing paste) or just tell the customers to take good care of their jewelry with care instructions?
Besides, what do you recommend as care advice knowing that I prefer a matte or satin finish.

Thank you very much for your attention,

J. Nicaise

 

[DanM]

Hello,
I'm creating a post because I need a little advice.
Indeed, I'm creating a small collection with rings with engraving (principally flare cutting) and flush settings. I plan to start with a few pieces in 925 silver (and 18k gold on order).
My question is: do you think it's better to plate my engraved silver pieces with white gold or rhodium plating to avoid oxidation?
But I heard once that plating is not recommended in engraving (maybe just spend a quick extra cotton pendant wheel at the end without polishing paste) or just tell the customers to take good care of their jewelry with care instructions?
Besides, what do you recommend as care advice knowing that I prefer a matte or satin finish.

Thank you very much for your attention,

J. Nicaise

Use argentium silver ,it doesn't tarnish like sterling does.

 

[Juliette N.]

Use argentium silver ,it doesn't tarnish like sterling does.

Thank you very much for your answer
I have a few pieces that need to be cast and unfortunately the caster don't work with argentium silver but with 925 silver. I'm in Belgium and it is the only caster that I found

 

[Goldjockey]

Hello,
I'm creating a post because I need a little advice.
Indeed, I'm creating a small collection with rings with engraving (principally flare cutting) and flush settings. I plan to start with a few pieces in 925 silver (and 18k gold on order).
My question is: do you think it's better to plate my engraved silver pieces with white gold or rhodium plating to avoid oxidation?
But I heard once that plating is not recommended in engraving (maybe just spend a quick extra cotton pendant wheel at the end without polishing paste) or just tell the customers to take good care of their jewelry with care instructions?
Besides, what do you recommend as care advice knowing that I prefer a matte or satin finish.

Thank you very much for your attention,

J. Nicaise

Ditto on Argentium. The fewer steps to get to the finished product the better, and dealing with plating is a PITA. What are you planning to use to create your matte or satin finish?

 

[Juliette N.]

Thank you for your answer. I plan to do a nice polish and then put a satin finish pendant wheel or a pendant frosting wheel and then engrave obviously at the end.

 

[Juliette N.]

Maybe I can order some argentium and bring it to the caster. (He'll probably charge me extra because he'll have to clean these machines to avoid contaminating his next castings) I can try

 

[silverchip]

Skip the argentium and just rodium plate them after engraving if you want to keep them bright. Rodium plating just takes a few seconds to apply. It will stay bright for a very long time if it is not worn and just used for display.

 

[Juliette N.]

Ok thank you very much for your advice

 

[Goldjockey]

Thank you for your answer. I plan to do a nice polish and then put a satin finish pendant wheel or a pendant frosting wheel and then engrave obviously at the end.

Thank you for clarifying. Plating is problematic with rings for two reasons. 1. Rings wear at an accelerated rate compared to virtually anything else, and plating is the first thing to go in terms of wear. Plating on something that gets a lot of wear is just asking for problems if the buyer has an expectation that the finish will wear at least reasonably well. If you offer any sort of guarantee (and even if you don’t), you are going to have a high percentage of product come back for refinishing and re-plating. 2. As you know, a matte finish is usually quite sensitive to wear all on its own, and the look of whatever matte finish you apply is going to be affected (changed) by plating.

Flare cut does seem like the best choice for an engraved ring, as it‘s going to hold up to wear better than single point engraving which tends to wear very, very poorly on anything that is worn regularly on the finger.

We used to do a lot of matte finish in my workshop, but stayed away from it for anything but the very top of a tapered shank ring because the bottoms and sides of rings get so much wear and tear that most of the matte finish is gone in short order. Just a suggestion, but a good high polish always tends to sell well, and it’s going to be less problematic for you in the long run.

 

[Juliette N.]

Thank you for clarifying. Plating is problematic with rings for two reasons. 1. Rings wear at an accelerated rate compared to virtually anything else, and plating is the first thing to go in terms of wear. Plating on something that gets a lot of wear is just asking for problems if the buyer has an expectation that the finish will wear at least reasonably well. If you offer any sort of guarantee (and even if you don’t), you are going to have a high percentage of product come back for refinishing and re-plating. 2. As you know, a matte finish is usually quite sensitive to wear all on its own, and the look of whatever matte finish you apply is going to be affected (changed) by plating.

Flare cut does seem like the best choice for an engraved ring, as it‘s going to hold up to wear better than single point engraving which tends to wear very, very poorly on anything that is worn regularly on the finger.

We used to do a lot of matte finish in my workshop, but stayed away from it for anything but the very top of a tapered shank ring because the bottoms and sides of rings get so much wear and tear that most of the matte finish is gone in short order. Just a suggestion, but a good high polish always tends to sell well, and it’s going to be less problematic for you in the long run.

Thank you for bringing me your advice and your experience in your work, I will take into account your advice, Juliette

 

[Mike Cirelli]

You cannot rhodium plate silver without under plating. Usually copper then nickel then rhodium. Plating silver directly with rhodium will ruin your solution. Rhodium solutions very expensive now. As others suggested use other types of sterling. Stuller has one called continuum also.

 

[Juliette N.]

You cannot rhodium plate silver without under plating. Usually copper then nickel then rhodium. Plating silver directly with rhodium will ruin your solution. Rhodium solutions very expensive now. As others suggested use other types of sterling. Stuller has one called continuum also.

Thank you for your answer. I'm going to look for a European supplier (because the export charges are very high if I order from the USA)
I hope to be able to find one because the continuum seems very resistant to tarnishing.
I have already found a supplier for the argentium, also I'm going to look into its properties to see if it's similar to sterling silver for soldering and everything.

 

[Sinterklaas]

Argentium is a brand name, Continuum also I think. Both are more or less the same thing. A low tarnish alloy. You can also buy the alloy from a company like Legor. You add fine silver and cast it.

Where in EU are you? Maybe someone or I can help you find a supplier.

 

[Juliette N.]

I'm in Belgium, I only found a supplier: cooksongold but in England, since they are outside Europe I imagine that there must be fees (but surely less high than for the USA)
I will continue to inquire and I'm waiting for the answer from the official argentium website. If someone can recommend one that would be great indeed.
Thank you very much for your help.

 

[Sinterklaas]

Argentium is sold here:

https://www.bijoumoderne.nl/

They will ship to Belgium. And their website is also available in French.

As for soldering you can use regular hard silver-solder. The only difference is that argentium becomes very brittle when at soldering temperature. So you can not push or pull on it when it is very hot. It will crumble. Normal silver can be pushed and pulled even when it is very hot.

 

[rweigel]

Continuum is, as far as I know, a Silver alloy containing Palladium. It is harder and more
tarnish resistant than Argentium, but due to the extremely high Palladium price much more expensive.

Cheers

Ralf

 

[Juliette N.]

Argentium is sold here:

https://www.bijoumoderne.nl/

They will ship to Belgium. And their website is also available in French.

As for soldering you can use regular hard silver-solder. The only difference is that argentium becomes very brittle when at soldering temperature. So you can not push or pull on it when it is very hot. It will crumble. Normal silver can be pushed and pulled even when it is very hot.

Thanks a lot for the information, I'm going to visit their website

 

[Juliette N.]

Continuum is, as far as I know, a Silver alloy containing Palladium. It is harder and more
tarnish resistant than Argentium, but due to the extremely high Palladium price much more expensive.

Cheers

Ralf

Thank you for your answer. Indeed the price is higher. My goal would be to move to 18k solid gold but for now I'm on a small budget, so I'll probably move to argentium.

 

[rweigel]

Juliette,

Argentium is a good start. I use it a lot for flare cutting and “manual guilloche”, it cuts well and the cuts stay bright for a long time.

Cheers

Ralf

 

[Mike Cirelli]

What makes any silver alloy more tarnish resistant is germanium. So I believe any sterling alloy with germanium added will have adequate tarnish resistance. Argentine is nice because it can be heat treated to harden similar to white gold.