Rhodium Plating Sterling Silver?

Hi!

I have been working with sterling silver a lot over the past few months, mainly making custom pendants for necklaces. I have been gold plating some pieces too. However I was wondering if I should be rhodium plating the 925 sterling silver pendants I am making? I know sterling silver does tarnish and that rhodium plating can prolong the piece before tarnishing occurs but does anyone on here make jewellery from sterling silver and plate it with rhodium? or use a clear e-coating? Because as of now I am just making the pendants, polishing them up and using ultra sonic cleaner and then a final clean with a cloth and they look great but unsure if I should be plating the silver. Just had a look and rhodium solution for plating is very expensive too.

Let me know your thoughts and opinions on this. I am new to jewellery making!

Thank you

Rhodium solution is at an high at the moment around £800 a litre last time I checked. It looks great but you would need to do lots of jewellery to recover your money. Maybe look at a product called silverbrite its not as white as rhodium but does offer protection against tarnishing. the machine is expensive but you can pick them up second hand. the solution is much cheaper though. I would maybe just polish them up and include anti tarnish strips in your packaging.

Switch to Argentuim, takes as long (if at all) if not much longer to tarnish than the Rhodium plate will last

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Originally Posted by china

Switch to Argentuim, takes as long (if at all) if not much longer to tarnish than the Rhodium plate will last

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Ah this looks good and its not that much more expensive. The only thing is a lot of my customers email requesting 925 sterling silver so I know a lot of them won't have heard of argentium silver so I don't know if that would put customers off buying, even if I did explain that its better.

Thanks for the suggestion!

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Originally Posted by josef1

Rhodium solution is at an high at the moment around £800 a litre last time I checked. It looks great but you would need to do lots of jewellery to recover your money. Maybe look at a product called silverbrite its not as white as rhodium but does offer protection against tarnishing. the machine is expensive but you can pick them up second hand. the solution is much cheaper though. I would maybe just polish them up and include anti tarnish strips in your packaging.

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Thanks for the suggestion! I will have a look at this. I haven't had any customers complain of their silver pieces tarnishing so far but last night a customer told me their pendant turned dark after only a few times wearing it and then said they thought they were paying for sterling silver not cheap metal - I tried to explain that sterling silver will tarnish overtime and this is normal but they weren't having it.

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Originally Posted by BH1

Ah this looks good and its not that much more expensive. The only thing is a lot of my customers email requesting 925 sterling silver so I know a lot of them won't have heard of argentium silver so I don't know if that would put customers off buying, even if I did explain that its better.

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Don't tell them. It's marked as 925 by the assay office so they won't be able to tell.

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Originally Posted by alastairduncan

Don't tell them. It's marked as 925 by the assay office so they won't be able to tell.

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That's good to know, thanks! Seems it will be much easier doing that then than spending money and time on rhodium plating everything.