Platinum over gold?

[tinkerbell]

Can you put platinum over white gold? If you can, do you have to get it redone every so often? I have a white gold ring with diamonds that I would perfer to be platinum.
Thanks for any answers.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

You have white gold rhodium plated. I believe rhodium is in the platinum family and extremely white.

 

[tanalasta]

You wouldn''t plate platinum over gold. It''s unorthodox, expensive and I don''t even know whether it''s ''done''.

Rhodium is what goes over gold. It''s a lot cheaper and one of the white(ist) metals available. Most jewellers who rhodium plate do so on a regular basis and it doesn''t take very long to dip a ring in an electroplating solution to have it looking all shiny again. It will need to be redone every-so-often depending on how quickly the plating wears down but generally annually is acceptable - have it done at the same time you get your ring setting checked.

 

[Cehrabehra]

Date: 2/4/2007 10:22:22 PM
Author: tanalasta
You wouldn''t plate platinum over gold. It''s unorthodox, expensive and I don''t even know whether it''s ''done''.

Rhodium is what goes over gold. It''s a lot cheaper and one of the white(ist) metals available. Most jewellers who rhodium plate do so on a regular basis and it doesn''t take very long to dip a ring in an electroplating solution to have it looking all shiny again. It will need to be redone every-so-often depending on how quickly the plating wears down but generally annually is acceptable - have it done at the same time you get your ring setting checked.

sometimes even platinum is rhodium plated because it is whiter and doesn''t scratch as easily.

 

[Adylon]

Actually rhodium is not cheap, infact it is MUCH more expensive then platinum.

Currently platinum is trading at $1160/oz, but rhodium is $5710/oz.

Ideally if you could have the perfect white metal alloy jewelry, some sort of 900 or 950 blend of pure rhodium would be awesome but it would be incredibly expensive, not to mention pure rhodium is softer then platinum so you'd have to be very creative in your alloying metals to strengthen it up. I know at one time someone made a solid chain out of rhodium, I'm not sure what they alloyed it with but can you imagine a solid 6mm or 7mm curb chain or something would easily cost $100,000+ to make in solid rhodium.

Anyhow, you can probably platinum-plate gold, I'm really not sure what the process is. For silver, for example you can't just rhodium plate it, you have to nickel plate first then rhodium because the rhodium will not plate directly on silver. I'm not sure if platinum will plate on gold but it may be possible. But if you want the "BEST" metal, the whitest metal to plate with, the most expensive, and easily accessible metal by every jeweler, get rhodium plated instead. "Platinum Plated" is only a QVC thing made to sucker people into parting with their hard earned dollars

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Platinum is inert and can not form a salt with anything to allow eletro chemical plating - so you can not platinum plate.

Rhodium is a flash plating and wears off quickly.

We often make a new ring over the top of an old worn thin wedding ring so the old one is totally incased.
It is labour intensive and only viable for a ring that is the same all the way around.

 

[Londonchris]

I buy and set palladium white gold these days as it stays nice and white without plating (which looks patchy) when it wears off.
Plating is best just for ring "heads" and hard to get to areas that need polishing.

 

[pyramid]

Date: 2/5/2007 12:40:29 AM
Author: Adylon
''Platinum Plated'' is only a QVC thing made to sucker people into parting with their hard earned dollars

I have often wondered after reading here about Platinum not being able to be plated on metals, what it is that QVC are using. Is it just Rhodium plating?

 

[tinkerbell]

Thank you for all the responses and information. I am now looking into getting the ring remade in platinum and reusing the diamonds.
Anybody know any good jewelers to work with through the mail? I currently live in England but don''t want to pay the pound price to have a ring made, it''s just too expensive.

 

[MWG]

Hi,

Buy platinum, if you want platinum. There is no substitute, what you are trying to do in my way of thinking, is the same as gold plating jewelry, it looks nice for 15 minutes and then it reveals why you only paid a fraction of the price.

Just my opinion
MWG