Plating rhodium on white gold

Ed. note; This is an interesting but terribly long thread, and only one of many. Before you get too confused, you might want to start with our FAQ on Rhodium Plating and White Gold to get an overall understanding :-)

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Can you plate white gold with platinum or silver? if so, would it rub off as quick as rhodium?

thanks,

Gold is yellow metal in nature. we use nickel and palladium in the alloys to turn it white with bleaching effect. silver is white in nature so it can give its colour to gold and turn it a bit white. More the content of nickel, palladium and silver, more the metal be white. but the surface it not perfectly white and shiny. So rhodium is deposited on it by electroplating process.

Rhodium is most brightest metal on this planet. But is grayish in nature. it reflects the base metal colour so the metal appears white and bright after rhodium platting.

You can get white, brown and yellow sports on your metal surface if the rhodium process is not done carefully or the metal surface is not cleaned properly before rhodium.

since rhodium is brightest metal, even a small scratches on your piece will be clearly visible after rhodium. so the piece should be nicely buffed before rhodium.

while plating, the person should take care of several things like, the voltage and current at which the piece is dipped in the rhodium bath, the time for which the piece is kept in the bath, the bath temperature, the piece should be cleaned properly, after cleaning its rinsed with DM water and then before entering to the rhodium bath, its dipped in acid to make the piece neutral (i.e. pH 7). If all these instructions are followed properly, you can get a perfect, clean, and spotless rhodium plating on your metal.

I have recently read that the jewellery industry in the UK has been aware of this problem and has recently graded white gold on a 32 point system and then sub divided into 3 categories so the manufacturer or the retailer buying white gold bullion or finished products will know what grade and colour they are purchasing even if already plated . This grading has been done through the gold council and assay office .
Grade 1 - no need for plating
Grade 2 - option to plate
Grade 3 - requires plating

I think the main point that is rarely recognized in all of this is: My grandmother and mother have white gold rings which have never needed plating. Why is that? It angers me to hear "white gold is made of yellow gold, which is yellow in color....bla bla bla... so deal with it." Again, why do we all have relatives with white gold jewelry that has never yellowed and never been plated? Anyway, yes, the same thing happened to my wife and I. It is just disheartening to find out that you now have to bring in your engagement ring and wedding bands for plating every 6 months.... What? So how are we going to pass my wife's ring on to our daughter? I guess with a maintenance plan for say.... 100+ years.

It is indeed disheartening, Brian, and you are right about how big a problem it is. I've learned a lot in the last few years --

Gold is yellow. There are no isotopes that are white; that is scientific fact.

To make jewelry, jewelers usually mix gold with other metals because pure 24 karat gold is too soft for finely detailed jewelry. If the other metals they mix it with are chiefly nickel or palladium, the resulting mix will be "whitish". How white depends on which metals they mix in, and in what proportion. A "whiteness scale" is mentioned a few postings above.

Your relatives have rings where the right metal (probably palladium) was mixed in, and in the right proportion, that the ring came out satisfactorily white for them, and it stayed that color over the decades.

Although your relatives' rings are indeed white, they are not the brilliant shiny highly polished, diamond-like, chrome-plated-like look of what you see in jewelry stores today. That is the look of rhodium, not the look of white gold. Whether consumer-driven or jeweler-driven, tastes changed to where people now expect white gold jewelry to be that brilliant rhodium plated color -- perhaps because it makes the diamonds look bigger. So it became nearly universal to rhodium plate the jewelry, and you won't see much unplated white gold jewelry; and if you do, you will find it quite "dull" compared to the glittery rhodium plated stuff.

My assumption is that what happened is the jewelry industry started saying to themselves "we're going to rhodium plate it anyway, why spend the extra money for palladium in the mix", so they started accepting white gold of lower and lower "whiteness" as the base, worrying about it less and less. It seems that some jewelry stores in the middle aisles of malls may even be rhodium plating regular yellow gold.

Some people love the glistening rhodium plated look so much that they accept frequent replating as the cost of getting it. I'm not one of them. Like you, I believe heirloom jewelry should not be plated. But I accept that that means it will be "white" but it will not be dazzling because a mix of yellow gold and other metals, no matter how well done, just can never be the brilliant dazzling color of rhodium. Hope it helps.

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

I am in college and my boyfriend just proposed to me and the ring already has the white gold peeling off and it looks horrendous and we have our engagement party coming up. can I get it replated and about how much does this cost?

Peeling!? The plating is for some reason defective, Nancy. It might eventually wear through, but it should never peel.

Other threads in this forum indicate a replating cost of about $30 to $50 at jewelry stores, although there are plating shops which have expensive instrumentation and which specialize in plating high quality jewelry, and they might charge twice that.

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

Hello. I got engaged last December, and my ring is white gold. I work at a bank and deal with change a lot so it got pretty scratched up on the bottom, and I noticed that yellowish tint. I did my research and understand fully the reasoning for this. So I went to have my ring replated. It was very inexpensive (~$40), and looked like NEW! The problem was that after about 2 months the same thing was starting to happen. I haven't gotten it replated again though. I was wondering if there was an amount of rhodium plating I could request to be done at one time (like thickness of it), to help keep it the way it is supposed to look for longer. Anybody know?

My wedding set is of white gold. I take my set in annually to have the rhodium placing done. From what I've researched and from what I've been told, white gold loses it's "white gold" color due to various reasons...chemical reactions to skin, chemical reactions to lotions, soaps, etc...also from salt water and just age. I fish and camp often so my rings get dull quite fast. If you purchase your rings with a warranty, the warranty coverage should cover the rhodium plating on your ring. The rhodium plating also help get rid of scratches. I just picked up my set today, takes about a week or so and about $35.00 per ring. They come back looking as if your rings are spanking new. I highly recommend getting the process done annually.

white gold sucks..after all the money I've paid for my rings I am almost sick that it looks so dingy after a few weeks..I have been told so many things- ohhh its having a reaction to your finger! Oh, all metals tarnish..! Blah blah blah..its all a bunch of crap. Then, the other day I went to get the rhodium plating done, and they told me that I could not because it will damage my ring! Meanwhile, I have been sending it away to get the plating done for three years..

Go for platinum..spend the money..or, just get yellow gold..save the hassle..

I've been reading some of the comments. White gold does not exist. Gold is yellow, no other color. It's Rhodium plated. You can go to the jewelry store and get it rhodium plated every year, for about $20-$40.
The yellowish of ring is the gold and nothing else.

Not quite true, Natalie. Because this issue is very confusing spread across hundreds of postings, we've summarized it all for easy reading as our FAQ on Rhodium Plating and White Gold.

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

Hi, Elaine. The biggest problem, as mentioned in the FAQS, is that the contrast between yellow gold and rhodium is so drastic that your ring becomes unsatisfactory looking very quickly. While I haven't heard of rings becoming brittle because of too frequent replating, I suppose it's possible if you are doing it every couple of months.

The price of rhodium is presently off the charts (literally! see www.kitco.com/scripts/hist_charts/yearly_graphs.cgi). It was $7000 per ounce in January and is $9,000 per ounce now. Although little is needed, I don't think you will be able to afford replating every 2 months forever, not to mention the inconvenience. Please consider letting your yellow gold ring be yellow.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

WAS WONDERING, COULD I GET YELLOW GOLD AND DIAMOND EARRINGS RHODIUM PLATED? I LOVE THE EARRINGS, BUT HAVE STARTED WEARING WHITE METALS EXCLUSIVELY.

Hi, Judy. It's only a matter of how long the rhodium plating will last before wearing off considering the strong contrast. It's not a good idea for a ring, but for earrings that you wear only occasionally, and that don't get friction like a ring, it will probably be fine.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

Unfortunately I could not read all the comments on this topic, I just got too tired to read of the same problem over and over again. But please read the following.
I am a Jeweler and I personally replate jewellery for a living.
The truth is that plating Rhodium over white gold is a jewellery making standard. Depending on the kind of alloys, the color may vary on white gold. What consumers need to know is that Rhodium is really a PLATING and it DOES wear out. Depending on how often jewellery are used and on the person, as well as on the quality of the plating and solution used. Some jewellery are hollow and the jeweler doesn't want to risk to contaminate a $450 solution, so he uses older solution.
Consumers also need to understand that a piece of jewellery CANNOT stay shiny forever. It's normal when the surface gets scratches over time.
There is no way to keep jewellery shiny forever. They need to be cleaned and polished regularly.
Now, if you really don't want you jewellery to discolor ask you jeweler to make your jewellery using SUPER WHITE K19 WHITE GOLD. This alloy does not require Rhodium plating and will stay white forever. Furthermore, it will REQUIRE polishing and cleaning regularly.

We are a manufacturing jeweler located in South Africa.

We often manufacture wedding bands for couples. Typically, mostly because the engagement ring is 18ct white gold, the lady's ring is made in the same metal.

Gents are generally rougher with their hands and so we mostly manufacture their rings in 9ct white gold which is more durable. The lower gold content (37.5%) + the other white alloys combine to give a whiter finish without the need for rhodium plating.

This is the main reason why gents bands do not tend to go yellow.

I've just read this thread with fascination. I have an 18ct white gold wedding ring and engagement ring. I've been married 4 years. 10 months ago I took the wedding ring in to the jeweler to be replated. This was the second time I had had it replated in the 3 years I had been wearing it (not the once every 5 they had originally advocated). Since I got it back last November, I literally only ever wear it to go to the office, I've been so careful with it, never wear it in bed, in the shower, to do DIY or gardening but not because of the 'turning yellow' problem cited here, but because despite the fact I hardly wear it, it is getting dinged and dented like you have never seen. Some of the scratches are so big you can fit a small fingernail down them. My engagement ring which I wear at the same time does not have this type of problem at all. I took it back to the jeweler at the weekend and he agreed that it looked more like a wedding ring that had been worn for 20 years, not 4 and was astonished when I related how careful I am with it. He started in about how I might have some sort of skin allergy to white gold but I find it hard to understand how a skin allergy, if it is such a thing, might be gouging scratches and dents in my wedding ring. It has now been sent back to the manufacturers for some kind of 'deep' re-rhodium plating which is going to take up to 4 weeks with a long explanation of what the problem is, but I'm not convinced that this is going to solve the problem. A wedding ring should surely last for life but it this carries on we'll be buying a new one within a few years. Does anyone have any experience of this type of problem?

Hi all,

Been reading through the thread and found some more info on another site which some of you may find useful.

Read on:

I have a white gold diamond ring purchased for me Feb 08 which I noticed was going a slightly yellowish tarnished colour on the underside of the band where there is the most wear (after 3 months). On purchasing the clerk did say it would need replating and when I asked how often his reply was "about 20 years or so". Had I known this whilst choosing the ring I would have steered clear of white gold (first item of white gold I have owned) and gone for yellow gold as I am a believer that plating of any kind will wear eventually and I like to be able to use things for their intended purpose and rings should be worn! So I was warned but lied to also. When I returned to the store they had it replated at no cost (said the first one was complementary!) but here I am again another 3 months later and have the same problem. That means to keep my ring looking the way I like I will have to spend minimum of £120 per annum! I was never warned that my skin reactions were also important. Had I known all of this I would not have purchased white gold -and when it's a gift I feel strange about having to return to the store and complain and I think they count on this. Sorry I'm cynical but been around a few years now! If rhodium is that strong how does it ever wear off plating or not?

I have a brand-new white gold engagement ring. I took it in to be sized, and since getting it back, I've noticed spots... You have to look at the ring in the right light and angle, but when you do, there are varrying sized spots, slightly darker than the rest of the ring.

Since I didn't notice them before the sizing, I'm wondering if anything in the sizing process (perhaps from the heat) could have caused this, and if anything can be done to fix it. My ring has about a week left on the return policy, so if nothing can be done, I'll exchange the band.

Hi, Jennifer. Yes, the ring was probably replated after the resizing, and this is probably the cause of the spotting. The jeweler should either polish out the spots or replate the ring. The spots are not supposed to be there. Good luck.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

February 17, 2010

I have read quite a bit on here about the different underlying compositions of white gold rings and I wonder if my appraisal would or should tell me what the underlying composition of my ring is? if not, is there an easy way to find out?

Also, I love the look just after it has been replated with Rhodium, and it doesn't wear that fast, but is it possible to replate it too often? could it actually be better to keep it plated to protect the underlying white gold?

Hi, Theresa. It is possible to tell the underlying composition via X-Ray Fluorescence, but the machines are very expensive and few jewelers would have them. Other than that, the test would be "destructive" -- that is, you would need to get to the underlying material to chemically test it for purity and composition.

The rhodium is only a few millionths of an inch thick. If it's done properly, I doubt that it's possible to do it too often.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

can I dip or plate my white gold in palladium?

my wedding band is palladium and at 1 yr old is still shiny white, my 4 year old white gold engagement ring however, is yellowing and dull..
thoroughly enjoyed reading this thread

Hi, Hailie.

Thanks for the kind thoughts. Unfortunately,palladium plating is not more durable than rhodium plating. The basic problem is that the palladium ring is a solid consistent pleasing color whereas the white gold ring is actually somewhat yellowish, with the yellowness concealed under a thin plating. No matter what plating you use, it will wear off because rings are very high wear items. But a top class job of plating, whether rhodium or palladium, will be an improvement over a quick and thin coat.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

I am and have been allergic to chrome, nickel and zinc for over 40 years and therefore cannot wear costume jewelry without breaking out in water blisters. I was recently on a cruise and on board the ship I purchased an inexpensive ring I was told was dipped in 'rhodium'. I had no idea what is was or wasn't but the price was great and I loved the ring just planning to use clear nail polish inside as usual. The Good News is that I wore the ring for 2 hours the first day, 6 hours the next day and a full day after that and didn't break out with blisters this time. I consider this 'rhodium' to be a miracle metal? as I am so sensitive to metal I break out from neosporin which contains zinc oxide. Thank you for 'rhodium-plating'.

I USED TO WORK FOR ZALES JEWELRY STORE AND MIGHT HAVE A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE INTO THE WHITE GOLD TURNING YELLOW PROBLEMS SO MANY OF YOU ARE HAVING. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS WHITE GOLD. NO ONE GOES MINING AND FINDS WHITE GOLD IT IS ALL YELLOW. RHODIUM IS A PROCESS OF TURNING THE YELLOW GOLD WHITE. WITH THAT BEING SAID, THE ACID IN YOUR BODY CAN TURN THE WHITE GOLD YELLOW AND DEPENDING ON YOUR BODY TYPE IT CAN BE MORE FREQUENT THAN OTHERS. AFTER A YEAR MINE IS STILL WHITE,BUT MY MOTHERS RING NEEDS TO BE REPLATED. OF COURSE THERE'S ALSO THE QUALITY FACTOR, BUT IN LAYMEN'S TERMS ALL RINGS ARE GOING TO NEED REPLATING AT SOME POINT IT'S JUST A MATTER OF HOW OFTEN WHICH DIFFERS WITH EACH INDIVIDUAL. ZALES OFFERS A LIFETIME PROTECTION PLAN WHICH WILL COVER RHODIUM PLATING FOR THE LIFE OF THE JEWELRY, IT'S WORTH THE EXTRA COUPLE OF BUCKS

Hi, Genna. Thanks for your input. But it's only partially correct. Although it is true that you can't find white gold in a mine, jewelry is rarely 24 kt gold. Rather it is, say 12 kt: i.e., half gold and half other metals. If those other metals are palladium or nickel, the jewelry will be whitish and it will be called white gold jewelry.

Yes, these days most white gold jewelry is rhodium plated for full "bling" because this is an age of bling, but if the jewelry is a good shade of white underneath the rhodium plating it will need replating rather infrequently because there will be very little contrast as the plating wears away. If the underlying metal is yellow, plating will be required very frequently because the contrast will be terrible as soon as the already very thin rhodium plating wears a little bit.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

Hello all,

I have had a lot of customers through our shop recently with 'White Gold' rings that are turning yellow, and none of them are all to happy about it to say the least.

It wouldn't be so bad if people were aware of it (as stated) but the problem is people like Genna above are not trained correctly and simply lack basic knowledge (basic in this industry) of precious metals.

We work with 18k White Gold and it is certainly not plated. While the price reflects that (due to the cost Palladium white is obviously more than gold) all our customers who prefer white gold are more than happy to pay that and we will NEVER have any back through the door unhappy with their metal choice.
I am really disgusted that other stores, mostly chains, are peddling Rhodium plated yellow gold as white. I had a conversation with another uninformed sales lady today who tried to tell me that Rhodium plated white gold was 'more pure' than that alloyed with Palladium, hence the yellow colour underneath. Honestly....!

Like others I believe it is high time a WORLDWIDE industry standard is set not just for quality of plating but also for the information given to customers. 9 times out of 10 people who are buying jewellery would rather pay a little more for QUALITY over having something that needs regular maintenance. The sales lady I spoke to even said I could pay $300 NZ for a lifetime of *cough* free re-plating. Lady, you should be paying ME for MY time to come in and get that plating done every year or two!

Taz - Akaroa Blue Pearls.

Wow, this thread is very informative and I find it very helpful! One topic that I only saw mentioned once and am looking for further information on is the topic of two toned rings.

My wedding ring is majority white gold with a ring of yellow gold surrounding a yellow diamond on the side. When visiting the jeweler, they offered to clean it up for me and make it new. I did not understand the rhodium plating process at that time. (I now do, thanks to this page :-)). When they brought my ring back, the yellow gold was now white. I was so upset as the entire reason i choose my ring with my husband is because it was two toned. The jeweler explained he could remove the rhodium layer using an eraser method. When they brought it back out this time, the yellow gold was back but much lighter than it originally was. At times, I look at my. Ring and do not even notice the contrast between the white and yellow gold as I used to. Further, I feel my diamonds have a darker, almost gray color to them now. And the textured sides surrounding the yellow gold and smoothed down and no longer match the rest of the ring. As everyone else on this page, this ring is the most expensive piece of jewelry I own. Any thoughts or advice would be so greatly appreciated!

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