9ct gold looks grubby

[jeannette.copeland]

Hi,

I made a ring that has balls of silver and gold soldered on. It's been pickled and tumbled, but the gold balls are a dirty colour, hardly resemble gold and the silver is all looking lovely.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Jeannette

[Goldsmith]

9ct. gold has only 37.5% of pure gold and depending on the alloys sometimes does not pickle well. Tumbling does not remove any surface metal, it really burnishes the surface so if the gold is stained it will remain stained. Polishing with a mop may solve your problem as mop polishing removes the surface layers. In the future use higher carat gold for the balls.

James

[Dennis]

Hi Jeanette,

James is right of course, but if your balls were made from new wire and not melted scrap, the discolouration will only be on the surface.

You might not be into mops and polishes so why not get yourself a radial disk kit from Cookson: 99919067 the yellow is the coarsest, and the green the finest. A light go with the blue one on your Dremel or flexshaft will rescue your work without distorting the balls.

Once you have it you will find endless uses for it. Regards, Dennis.

[Truffle & Podge]

Radials are amazing! Just gutted they are so expensive :(

[jeannette.copeland]

Hi, thanks, it was scrap that I was just trying, so I'll try it on the mops but can always ditch it. Thanks for the advice.