White Gold Irradiated to clean it?

[purduephotog]

My wife hit me with this question-

When she took her ring in to be appraised (grumble insurance company every 3 years bs) to the tune of 100$, she was told it needed to be cleaned- irradiated in fact- something white gold needs.

I never treasure ignorance, but I''ve never even heard of this before and a google search (difficult as irradiated and diamond typically go together) showed only a single question- which wasn''t answered.

Is this typical?

 

[Fly Girl]

Perhaps she misheard. I expect the piece needs to be rerhodiumed, perhaps?

 

[HopeDream]

Hi Purduephotog,

White gold is often plated with a very white and shiny metal called rhodium to make it appear whiter than it actualy is. Over time the rhodium plating wears thin and the yellowness of the gold starts showing through (more a cream color than a yellow realy). A jeweller can easily re-plate the ring with rhodium to make it look all shiny and new again.

"rhodium-plating" sounds a lot like "irradiating" if you say it quickly.