Jewellery Alteration Query

[talamasca]

I know this may not be in the correct place on the forum, however it's about my coloured e-ring so kind of relative!

Anyway my question is when a Jeweller solders the shank and setting together of a white gold ring would the solder mark be black?

When I went to pick up my e-ring last week it had a black mark which she said was a solder mark. However, my ring was supposed to have been rhodium plated AND polished so why was this mark even there?

I did a quick Google and found some jewellers use silver when soldering so could this be why it was black? And is it acceptable to use silver on a white gold ring?

Thanks, I'm hopefully collecting my ring tomorrow and I'll be complaining about a couple of issues I have with them and want to get my facts right beforehand.

 

[Lady_Disdain]

No - there shouldn't be a black mark from soldering the rings together. Black is oxidization, which should be removed by pickling ( which can be done without dunking the stone as well) or sanding/polishing. After all, you can't see any of the other soldering seams in your ring, can you?

I imagine that some jewelers might use silver solder when soldering 2 rings together because it flows at a lower temperature. If there are stones already set, even if protected by a heat shield, this would be safer. However, the solder still shouldn't be showing. It might tarnish faster, so that it would eventually show, but not straight out of the shop and not under rhodium plating.

 

[talamasca]

Thank you. So the mark was just from being worked on. She did say she was polishing out.

It makes my wonder if it had been plated then. It did look much whiter than the first time I tried it on so I presumed it had, but if that was the case I don't understand why there was a mark?

Hmm, will have to ask if it's definitely been plated.

 

[Pandora II]

The only thing I am thinking is that because it's 9kt there will be a much higher percentage of silver than there would be in a higher karat metal (the only countries that use 9kt are the UK and Australia) and so the likelihood of a solder mark would be potentially more possible.

I'm not a bench jeweller, but I can check with someone tomorrow if that would help.

If it hasn't been polished then it wouldn't have been plated - the plating is done with a pen so very easy to do.

 

[Michael_E]

I did a quick Google and found some jewellers use silver when soldering so could this be why it was black? And is it acceptable to use silver on a white gold ring?

No jewelers use silver when soldering gold alloys as far as I know. It isn't strong enough and it runs all over the place, so why mess with it?
I have also never seen a black mark on jewelry that wasn't just some polish compound which didn't get removed during cleaning. All of the oxidized marks which occur tend to be brownish or almost an orangy color. Sometimes you can mess up during plating and form some black deposits, but these are easily removed and rather obvious. I have a feeling that your ring just hadn't been cleaned completely and that it will be fine after they clean it well.

 

[talamasca]

thank you I think it must just have been something which wasn't polished out as it's fine now and it's definitely been plated.

Thank you for the offer Pandora, but I collected the ring first thing before checking on here.