Mario Sarto
Elite Cafe Member
I don't know the right word in English, but electroplating sounds good.About “gilding” do you mean like electro plating with Rhodium? I agree it looks dirty when not treated. But if yellow gilding would help on yellow gold, I learned something new.
The reason of looking different or better say dirty to the rest of the piece is, we use alloys in jewelry and we decuple the surface, when stippling. That means, exceptionally when using low alloys like 14k or even deeper, acids, oxygen, sulfur and so on react with the non-precious or lower precious properties. If we have a polished surface, these reactions takes much longer. Furthermore some forged (stippling is/does forging) material looks darker than not forged - independent from the tool, that is used. Try it with different alloys by milling and not milling and look onto it under diffuse light.
And at last of course, particles from skin, clothing and more goes in - these we can remove easily by using ultrasonic. But an oxidation takes more effort and can be prevent with an "electroplating".
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