Plating & Setting & Finishing Guide for Jewelry

• 1.Jewelry Plating Guide
• 2.Jewelry Settings Guide
• 3.Jewelry Finishing Guide

1. Jewelry plating guide

Gold Plated – Gold plating is a method of depositing a gold layer of .175 microns (approximately 7/1,000,000ths of an inch) with at least 10-karat gold onto the surface of another metal, most often silver or copper, by chemical or electrochemical mode.

Silver Plated – Items made from a base metal, with a thin layer of silver applied to the surface through the process of electro-plating.

Rhodium Plated – Jewellery made from a base metal with a thin layer of rhodium applied to the surface. After some extensive research, as well as our in-house testing, we will now be rhodium plating all of our Asha? white-gold jewelry, at our cost. The improved appearance of rhodium plating was initially noticed because of its extra beauty to the naked eye, but as the points below will show, it not only enhances the beauty of both white gold, it helps ensure the longest-lasting, most durable finish for your jewelry. The result: stunning jewelry that stays stunning much longer than un-plated white gold.

Cloisonné Enamel - Enamel is a kind of glass fused to metal at high temperatures [around 800 degrees Centigrade]. Enameling adds a beautiful touch to metals. It takes a "regular" piece of jewelry and makes it unique. Most enameling is done by hand and takes a steady hand and with good eye. Enameling may have been invented independently in around the world.

2. Jewelry setting guide

Stone setting is one of the essential stages of jewelry making, in which gemstones are attached in a metal casting. The main objective of stone setting is to hold a gemstone securely as well as to enhance the brilliance of a gemstone by showing its cut, clarity and color. Jewelry manufacturers use numerous methods to set a gemstone into a jewelry item, which generally is based on gemstone's cut and proportion. Some of these methods and techniques are accepted and appreciated worldwide, which are described as under:

3. Jewelry finishing

All jewelry has some form of finish. Even as a designer begins to express his skill and creativity in the formation of a piece of jewelry, finish always plays a major role. The choices are many--brushing, hammering, diamond cutting, microblasting, and burnishing, to name just a few. Finish adds the final touch to every jewelry creation.

So have you ever wondered how jewelry manufacturers get that really bright finish on your ring or bracelet? A mirror-like finish can be applied by a number of techniques, some of which have been around for decades, others for centuries. Let's discuss finish.

When dealing with jewelry, the term finish has more than one meaning. Firstly, it may refer to the overall level of workmanship in the piece. Jewelry should not, for example, have any sharp edges, scratches marring its surface, incomplete detail work, or indistinct finish boundaries (unless done for effect). Such imperfections detract from the beauty, elegance, and feel of jewelry.

Secondly, finish may refer to the style of surface texturing on a piece of jewelry. A surface may appear semi-bright to mirror-like, or it may have some form of brushing, microblasting, or other texturing to add style or contrast.

There are different methods of creating reflective surfaces on precious metals. One is polishing with specialized compounds, called rouges. Rouges vary in coarseness based on the size of the abrasive particles contained in them. The appropriate rouges are applied to specialized wheels and cones at different stages in the finishing process. There are different rouges for gold, silver, and platinum.

Polishing in the truest sense is an operation that removes most of the larger, deeper surface irregularities and paves the way for the next step, called buffing. Buffing removes very little precious metal from the piece and uses rouges containing extremely fine abrasives. Buffing may produce a highly reflective mirror-like finish or even a duller, semi-bright finish, depending on the manufacturer's intent.

Another method of creating a reflective surface is to tumble pieces in specialized media containing some form of lubricant, such as water and detergent. The tumbler itself is an electronic agitator that shakes the pieces in a circular motion. The tumbling media may range from metal balls to walnut shells that continually rub against and flatten the surface of the precious metal, increasing its luster. The longer the pieces are left to tumble, the brighter their surfaces will be. Tumbling is considered a form of mechanical burnishing.

While mechanical burnishing is an inexpensive way to finish jewelry, hand burnishing is not. Hand burnishing produces a highly reflective finish by using a variety of

specialized tools to compress and flatten the surface of the precious metal. A lubricant is always required .

Each stroke, which involves a tool pressing against the surface of the piece, creates a bright streak. The trick is to layer or overlap each streak to form a continuous bright surface over the desired area. If an even finer, longer-lasting surface is needed, the piece can be burnished again perpendicular to the original stroke. While time consuming and labor intensive, hand burnishing does not remove any of the precious metal from the jewelry and can produce a very striking effect.

Any of those various finishing possibilities, while applied at the end of the crafting of a piece of jewelry, have to be thought out in advance, which is why fine jewelry, in a real sense, begins and ends with finishing.