[Jewelry making - Article 00307] - Re: [Orchid] Rhodium plating tanzanite jewelry

[Peter W . Rowe]

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>     We rhodium plate platinum jewelry so that the color is uniform
>     throughout the whole piece; would anyone not rhodium plate a ring
>     they have retipped using the traditional torch and white gold
>     solder method since using platinum solder would require more heat
>     than what stones can handle (or charging more for resetting). 

    Just my two cents, but I've now and then been able to make a pretty
    good bit of money by fixing prior retipping or other repair jobs on
    platinum that were done this way with gold solders. It used to be
    that one didn't always have any other choices, when mountings were
    such as did not allow removal of the stones, so retipping with gold
    solder was the only option. Now, with laser welders and to an extent,
    capacative discharge welders, one can retip platinum with platinum,
    producing a repair that's as good as, or sometimes even better than,
    the original metal. In this situation, frankly, I consider the use of
    white gold solder to retip platinum jewelry as being rather poor
    practice, no longer consistant with offering the customer the service
    quality they should get. If a repair shop is not equipped to do their
    own laser welding (and the continuing decline in the cost of entry
    level lasers makes this increasingly hard to defend), then in my view
    such jobs should be referred to, or subcontracted to a shop that can
    do it right. As a comparison, lets suppose your shop only has smith
    little torches at the bench, and the largest tip sizes you have is
    about a #4 tip. Now lets suppose you get in a large sterling silver
    gents ring with a turqoise stones set in it to size down. There's no
    way your tiny torch is going to be able to solder the seam in that
    ring if the turqoise is properly heat sinked. Would you unset the
    stones, or cut the ring size down normally but solder the seam with
    lead solder, which your torch could do, or maybe even avoid that
    nasty heat issue all together by gluing the joint with super glue. Or
    maybe simply sizing the ring by wrapping yarn around the shank till
    it's smaller. None of these methods, of course, would generally be
    considered acceptable practice by any decently trained jeweler. We'd
    either unset the stone, or go buy a larger torch, or reject the job.
    And that's with inexpensive silver. Why would any ethical repair
    shop still offer second rate methods when better methods are
    available. If your shop doesn't have the ability to properly handle
    platinum, wouldn't it be better to turn down the work? Just because
    the solder methods were traditional doesn't make them still
    acceptable now that significantly better ways can be offered. 

    Oh, and while I'm on that subject, do you have problems with solder
    seams in sizing joints polishing out to a line when sizing platinum
    rings with solder seams (instead of fusing the joints)? If so, have
    you heard of PMWest's line of plumb platinum solders? Yeah, they cost
    more. But perfect color match, and no lines polishing out or seams
    cracking or breaking at some later time as can sometimes happen with
    the palladium based solders... 

    Like I said, just my 2 cents. No doubt plenty of folks who don't
    have access to a laser or PUK type welder and can't find someone to
    subcontract that work to, will disagree. And I suppose I shouldn't
    argue, since as I said, I often am able to charge a healthy price to
    repair someone elses butchered repair work. Most likely, what I need
    to charge to fix such botched up jobs is a good deal more than I'd
    have needed to charge to just do it right in the first place. The
    customers seem to value their jewelry enough that they will pay
    these higher fees, so it stands to reason that many would have paid
    more in the first place, if offered the option to have it done it
    right. And with the ever increasing value of the platinum itself, the
    justification for doing it the best way is stronger than ever. 

Peter Rowe
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