[Jewelry making - Article 00220] - Re: [Orchid] Rhodium plating anomaly

[Mark Parkinson]

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Goo,

    We have the same problem sometimes. We will rhodium dozens of things
    without a problem, them one just will not plate well, then another
    dozen plate beautifully. I have always chalked that up to mysterious
    alloys. We will polish and rerhodium the crappy looking ring, but it
    will look spotty or dark and undeliverable. Our only recourse is to
    replace the rhodium with fresh and try that. The new rhodium usually
    works, but it bugs me to do that because I feel like I may be
    contaminating perfectly good rhodium with something weird in the
    ring that wouldn't plate well. 

    I will state our rhodium plating procedures just in case it might
    help you. 

    1. Polish 
    2. Clean ring in ultrasonic (distilled water in ultrasonic) 
    3. Steam clean (distilled water in steam cleaner) 
    4. Electroclean (made with distilled water and Gesswein's electro
    cleaner powder, heated to whatever they say to heat it to, I've
    forgotten). 
    5. Dip to clean in distilled water. 
    6. Electroplate with rhodium (3 volts, about 20 seconds, 3 gram
    solution) 
    7. Dip in distilled water 
    8. Steam clean 

    It is weird that your ring would not plate. I don't think the solder
    had anything to do with it. And although it's unnecessary to plate
    platinum, it rhodium plates beautifully. I think it's just one of
    those mysteries that makes life interesting, and a pain in the ass,
    usually in equal measures in my life. We would laser the area you
    soldered, you should buy a laser Goo. 

Mark
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