[Jewelry making - Article 00100] - Re: [Orchid] Rhodium Heated in Microwave

[Peter W . Rowe]

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>     I find it annoying having to heat up Rhodium and Caustic solutions
>     on the hot plate. Im wondering if it is possible to heat both in
>     the Microwave oven. Has anyone thought of this before and tried it.
>     Does it work ? 

    I plate only occasionally, so keeping solutions warm in a waterbath
    tank or the like would be overkill. So I DO use a microwave to warm
    up solutions needing it. Usually that's the electroclean and gold
    plating solutions. You might want to recheck the instructions for
    your rhodium solution. Most rhodium solutions I've seen operate at
    room temperature, not hot. 

    One thought about the microwave, though. It's probably not a good
    idea to use a microwave that you also use for food. Reserve this one
    for non-edible uses. Also, take great care that any dangerous or
    caustic solutions don't get hot enough to boil. A microwave, with
    it's ventillation fans running, and merrily boiling some solution
    actively could be putting more fumes in the air than the simple
    hotplate method would do. The microwave I use for this is a very
    cheap, low power small unit I found on sale once at Target for all of
    about 30 dollars. Works fine for plating solutions, as well as when I
    need a bit of pickle hot right now, at the beginning of a work
    session before the pickle pot has had a chance to heat up My pickle
    pot too, came from Target, a small crock pot for six dollars on sale.
    It's removable pot goes right in the microwave, where it heats up a
    lot faster than just left in it's own heating base. 

Cheers
Peter
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