[Jewelry making - Article 00061] - Re: [Orchid] Polishing Platinum

[Peter W . Rowe]

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>     If anyone can explain what evil it is that we are supposed to be
>     avoiding by using different equipment for finishing platinum, I am
>     eager to be enlightened. 

    Well, at the bench, it includes files, which can get bits of
    platinum or gold stuck in the teeth to contaminate other metals,
    though frankly, like you, I don't usually differentiate as much as
    sources suggest I should, and have never had major problems with the
    piece as a result. But I pay the price for that when it comes time to
    refine my scrap, which then is also not totally isolated gold from
    platinum. At the polishing wheel, though, I've not had problems. I'd
    note that I use Gesswein's platinum polishing compounds for much of
    my gold work as well. But I'll also note that those are aggresive
    compounds, and harsh enough to affect soft stones, especially
    facetted ones. So when I need to polish around a softer stone, or a
    very soft metal, I'll use buffs that have NOT been used for platinum
    compounds. A rouge buff with only red rouge on it will give a
    slightly higher finish to gold, and especially silver, than it would
    if it had platinum rouge on it. But the difference is slight. On the
    other hand, a rouge buff using traditional rouge will leave most
    facetted stones with nice clean sharp crisp facets. Buffing that same
    setting with platinum rouge will leave all those facet junctions just
    slightly rounded over. Not a nice thing to do to a nice stone. The
    quandry, of course, comes when one is polishing a platinum setting
    that's holding one of those soft stones... That's one of the times
    when the value of fully prepolishing a piece and a setting before
    setting the stones becomes fully apparent. 

Peter Rowe

 
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