[Jewelry making - Article 00365] - [Orchid] Rouge / Zam?

[Mike Dibble]

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Hi all,

    Hoping to get some thoughts on this: We recently started casting
    with a new caster who only uses a deox sterling alloy from D.H.
    Fell. He does wonderful work and is very reasonable. We have always
    used water base black rouge for polishing. The deox silver seems to
    get hotter, faster than the regular sterling and the rouge is
    effectively baking onto the metal, turning the polishing/cleaning
    into a much longer, tedious process than usual. Anyway, I asked our
    caster for suggestions and got the following response by email: 

    "You've got to be kidding me when you asked about rouge. Red rouge
    is dirty and only good for gold as is black and yellow. No one in
    the industry uses anything but Zam on the silver. And cast pieces no
    matter how good they look will always have microporosity in
    comparison to rolled sheet and wire as a consequence the rouge gets
    in there and turns them colors and as I said is dirty. Iron oxide
    the main ingident of red rouge is a tarnisher to silver unless
    completely chemically removed. Chromium oxide the green in Zam is
    not." 

Opinions? Suggestions?

Thanks!

Mike Dibble
Black Horse Design
www.black-horse-design.com

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