Rhodium Plating

Booking

The rhodium process is usually booked at our store to go to the workshop. If you bought your white gold jewellery from Sunsonite, this service is discounted for you.

Preparations

The Workshop will evaluate your jewellery before plating to ensure there are no loose stones or areas that need to be repaired. Once it has been established that proceeding is safe, a jeweller will thoroughly clean it in order to prepare it for the rhodium treatment.

Rhodium Plating

Electroplating safely applies rhodium to the surface of your white gold jewelry, restoring it to its original sparkling white color. Re-plate your jewelry every 3 to 6 months, depending on how much wear and tear it receives. Rings and bracelets that are worn every day will need to be re-rhodiumed significantly more often than pendants and earrings that aren't bashed around.

Why Rhodium Plate?

Most people were unaware of rhodium plating or its use in fine jewellery until the revival of white gold as the metal of choice. Consumers are finding that the pure chrome white color that appears on a new item in the jeweller's showcase alters over time as white gold becomes more popular. It's a little hard to grasp unless you learn that white gold is made from pure yellow gold. White gold is made by combining pure 24ct yellow gold with additional white metals.

The dazzling silver tone of the metal comes from rhodium coating. White gold jewellery has a slight yellow hue when it is made. Rhodium plating is applied to compensate for this. Rhodium is a rare precious metal that keeps a brilliant polish and provides a long-lasting finish on fine jewellery because it is highly hard and corrosion resistant.

Rhodium plating will eventually dissolve from surfaces that are subjected to continual wear, despite its resilience. Especially near the base of rings that get scuffed on hard surfaces on a daily basis. When this happens, the regions that have been scuffed repeatedly take on a faint yellow colour. These traces of color are initially undetectable; nevertheless, as time passes, the tint becomes noticeable.

Bring your white gold jewellery to our store for a professional jewellery cleaning if it is losing its shine and tone. We will inspect, clean, and polish your jewellery at our workshop. We will rhodium plate your white gold if it needs to be refreshed. During the inspection, our jewellers will alert you to any excessive damage and recommend the appropriate jewellery repair needed for restoration before plating.

Our fine jewellery makers will repair your heritage jewellery with the same expertise and equipment they use to make custom design jewellery at our workshop.