[Jewelry making - Article 01113] - Re: [Orchid] Refinishing Rhodium Plated Rings

[Peter W . Rowe]

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>     Does anyone have any recommendations on the removal of rhodium on
>     plated rings, short of C-4 plastic explosives. After working on a
>     plated item, all the rhodium needs to be removed to be bright
>     polished. Otherwise I end up with a spotty and milky replate. 

    Gesswein sells a line of platinum polishing compounds they import
    from Japan. They are a finely graded series of aluminum oxide
    abrasive rather than the usual silica or other gentler abrasives used
    in polishing. They'll polish platinum much faster than traditional
    agents, and will make short work of polishing off the rhodium you've
    got too. Start with the 800 grit "tripoli", and you can then go
    straight to the 8000 grit "rouge". If you like, an intermediate 1500
    step can be used, but I generally use only those two grades. Use
    seperate buffs for each grade of course. Though these compounds cost
    a lot more than traditional polishing agents, frankly, I'm hooked on
    the stuff. Differences in hardness such as in solder joints or
    multiple metal joints, etc, just don't cause problems. Solder seams
    don't polish out leaving lines. Even porosity leaves less drag lines
    than with other polishes. And the "rouge" has enough cut to it still
    to take out fine scratches, so even a contaminated rouge buff can
    still give you a good final finish since it pretty much corrects it's
    own error. Neutral in color, so it's easy to see color differences
    such as incompletely removed underplating or rhodium, or fire stain
    on silver, etc. 

    Last I looked, Gesswein offered a little starter kit of sample sized
    bits. That's enough to remove a good deal of rhodium, if you only do
    this occasionally, and is a good way to get a feel for these
    compounds. 

    One caution. Because this is basically aluminum oxide, it's capable
    of buffing/cutting even hard materials, like gemstones. Now with
    cabs, opals, etc, this isn't bad, since the rouge just touches up the
    shine on the stones too. But be careful with most facetted stones.
    You can slightly round over the facet edges of most softer colored
    stones if you're too aggressive with these compounds, a result which
    is not generally an improvement to the look of the stone... 

Peter Rowe
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