Q&A's on Repair of Gold Rings

A. I am not an expert on gold plating. Is it possible the part (s) could be soldered first, then gold plated? Another possibility-brush gold plate over soldered area? I am sure at least one brush plater kit manufacturer supports this site. Hope this helps!

A. Make your bands first and use hard solder to join the seam. White gold hard solder (1685 °F) for the white band and yellow gold hard for the yellow band (at least 1400 °F). Use yellow gold easy (1180 °F) to join your three bands.

A. Hi Madeleine. Almost all white gold jewelry these days is made from white gold followed by rhodium plating. We have an intro to the subject, "Rhodium Plating and White Gold" that answers most if not all of your questions. Get back to us if anything remains unclear. Thanks.

Regards,

Hi Madeleine, you problem could be something as simple as the type of repair solder used on the white gold. Some types of low temperature solders used for repair will discolor rapidly. In some cases I have seen silver solder used instead of a proper white gold solder for this type of repair. Silver solder will darken rapidly and appear black in color. Hopefully your jeweler is more skilled and did not make this mistake.

Hi Heather, its good that you have a warranty for the plating. Your ring is white gold, so don't worry about that issue. The issue really is about the thickness of the rhodium plating being provided by your jeweler. Typically you can expect to have it replated every 6-8 months. More information on this is available in the FAQ section (www.finishing.com) on this site.

Hi Lisa, you may have a metal allergy, but since your yellow gold ring is not causing problems, I would bet lunch that your white gold palladium ring has a small amount of nickel in it. It is a misconception that "all" palladium white gold alloys are nickel free. Many palladium white gold rings are nickel free. Some manufacturers will use both palladium and nickel in their alloys to improve physical characteristics. This works great for die struck jewelry designs. For lost wax cast jewelry designs it is not so great because the nickel/palladium alloy is not homogeneous and the nickel oxides "leach" out when exposed to perspiration. In your case if the ring was made locally using lost wax casting processes, the palladium white gold could have been contaminated with or mixed with a nickel based white gold material. I would recommend that you consider having your ring replaced with platinum or palladium white gold, assuming you can verify its metal content.

Happy New Year to all, Dave

METAL      SYMBOL  HARDNESS 
Platinum   Pt      4 to 4.5 
Palladium  Pd      4 to 4.5 
Rhodium    Rh      5 (Probably what was mentioned at the jeweler) 
Ruthenium  Ru      6.5 
Iridium    Ir      6.5 
Osmium     Os      7
 

A. Commonly Rhodium was plated over sterling articles to provide a bright finish, it has a high reflectivity index and a very high hardness when electroplated over an article. However it is tricky stuff; most likely what happened was that the original plating on the ring was contaminated by the silver (and pretty much anything can contaminate Rhodium, aluminum, iron, lead, etc.) and flaked off in the pickle bath. So I can say that the jeweler was probably not trying to cheat you, he's just probably having a time figuring out how to refinish the ring with the same material. I hope this helps some.

A. Lisa,

I first of all suggest you get your rash checked out by a dermatologist; this will confirm or otherwise the possibility of you being allergic to nickel. Secondly, I think you are being bamboozled about science. White gold is an alloy of pure gold with either silver or palladium added. Until quite recently jewelers used nickel as the alloying agent, but as you know people can be allergic to nickel. Anyway, pure gold is 24 karat; when other metals are added to purity is reduced, so if you have (say) 18 karat gold, the amount of pure gold is 75% (18/24) and there is 25% "impurity". White gold is usually sold as 18, 14 or 9 Karat, so it can have 75%, 58.3% or 37.5% gold, the remainder is made up of other metals. To say something is 24 karat pure white gold is therefore misleading; yes it is "pure" white gold, but white gold contains other metals that are not gold! In other words, they are saying that a mixture is "pure". In my opinion you have been misled by the jewelers into thinking you have pure gold metal in a white form; this is NOT the case.

In reality, white gold is usually actually slightly yellowish in colour, so many jewelers electroplate it with rhodium to give the article a nice bright shiny white finish. Unfortunately this plating does not last very long and even reputable jewelers say it should be redone every 12-18 months to maintain its colour. I suspect the jeweler who did yours didn't put as much rhodium on as perhaps he should have. There is a good article about this on www.giletts.com.au. Hope this helps you, but don't blame the person who gave you the ring - they probably didn't know they were being misled either!

A. Dear Lisa!

Commercial white gold alloys are of two kinds- palladium based white gold(expensive) and nickel based white gold (cheaper). Yellow gold contains no nickel at all. Maybe you have allergy to palladium?

A. Hi Lisa. Your ring is almost surely white gold made from gold plus nickel. Although nickel isn't used in Europe, it is very common in the USA; and as Trevor notes, lots of people are allergic to it. Rhodium plating help a little but not much because it is thin and porous. Yellow gold is a better idea if you like it.

Regards,

A. Gold is SOFT, 14k gold is only about 50% gold and the rest is either Nickel or another metal. The ring will take scratches and nicks easily, they can be polished out later on, but depending the depth they might not come back out. If this is your wedding band, I would suggesting doing what I do, have two rings, one that you wear day to day, and one for special occasions.

Now I assume that your ring didn't have any plating problems, which is good, and I would suggest taking the ring back to the store you got it from for any work.

A. Hi, I came across this site looking for information on repairing a silver ring. I had it sized smaller so the person I took it to made a cut and "glued" it together or so it seemed. The seal broke and now my ring band has a gap. I am taking it to another jeweler who will be using white gold to full in the gap for $20 -- good price. I know the ring isn't worth what I've paid plus the $20, but its very lovely.

A. To answer some gold questions:

- if it DOES NOT have a 14k, 10k something k mark.. it's plated. Its very common to have a 14k plated over silver ring.
- 14k white gold turns a lovely slight golden tone to the white over time.

- Rhodium plated anything means its not true gold. I don't see why you would plate a gold ring? might as well get a silver plated rhodium ring and save some money.

- Gold will never tarnish a dark color but can become dirty as any metal would so you can use a gold tarnish remover and the gold will become more shiny.

- If anybody decides to size down a silver ring.. make sure to ask if they will be bonding the silver together and not soldering it( the seal will break)

- 24k is the more pure gold you can get.. they do have 14k nickel free gold but its rare to find in stores.

- Gold rings tend to scuff, but its less noticeable in white gold. the higher the gold (18k-24k), the more likely marks will appear -- this gold is softer.