Gold Plating Help!!

[Cardiffbloke]

Can anyone help....?? I have a pretty rare badge that some sausage has gold plated for display! The base metal is bronze and my local jeweller tells me that if he tries to un-gold plate it electrically in some acid solution or other, it will eat the bronze away and ruin his £200 solution. I have tried to gently rub it off but it's not been leafed on but electro plated.... Am i up sh*t creek?
Howard

[Luke H]

Originally Posted by Cardiffbloke

Can anyone help....?? I have a pretty rare badge that some sausage has gold plated for display! The base metal is bronze and my local jeweller tells me that if he tries to un-gold plate it electrically in some acid solution or other, it will eat the bronze away and ruin his £200 solution. I have tried to gently rub it off but it's not been leafed on but electro plated.... Am i up sh*t creek?
Howard

Howard,

You could try polishing it but you'll will always have traces of the gilt left where you can't reach with the rag ie in the crevices and tiny gaps, plus it's pretty labourious. Trouble are going too far will rub the bronze shiney (leaving it out in the open air but protected from rain etc will dull it down some) and you can take the detail off the badge if again you go slightly too far.

Not a pleasent situation to be in, hope you find some way out of the pickle (it's bloody annoying when these people plate these things innit!).

Cheers,

Luke

[Peter Brydon]

Just as a matter of interest, a former Liverpool Scottish drummer I knew won a Gilded or gold plated Highland Volunteers/Brigade badge as a prize in a competition and I often wonder what people would make of it if it ever came on the market.

I have also come across 1914 and 1914/15 stars which have been gilded or gold plated.

May we ask what is the badge you have that has been gold plated ?

P.B.

[Cardiffbloke]

Luke,
thanks for that mate.... i can assure you i have tried that method and after 3 hours of polishing post 5 hours paint stripper all i managed to do was clear some of the high points of the badge. It also became evident that if i continued i would start to lose definition! So it has to be stripped of it chemically or electrically or both.... I just wonder if the jeweller had his head up his A*se?
Have attached pic..
Howard

[Luke H]

Originally Posted by Cardiffbloke

Luke,
thanks for that mate.... i can assure you i have tried that method and after 3 hours of polishing post 5 hours paint stripper all i managed to do was clear some of the high points of the badge. It also became evident that if i continued i would start to lose definition! So it has to be stripped of it chemically or electrically or both.... I just wonder if the jeweller had his head up his A*se?
Have attached pic..
Howard

Howard,

It sounds like a right sod unfortunately, not sure what to suggest. I'm at university in Aberystwyth and could ask a Dr in biochem surely if anyone knows they would. Trouble what I'm thinking is that anything that takes away gold is going to have a field day corroding bronze, so some sort of electrolysis may be the solution.

Cheers,

Luke

[Cardiffbloke]

Hi PB
Yes, it is the Officers collar pattern badge, Cast in bronze and worn as an early pattern Service Dress Cap Badge in South Africa during the 2nd Boer War.
As you will see, the crown ribbons have been snipped off which was something both the Officers and ORs did for a short period of time in the badge's history. Not all are snipped and the jury is out on why they did it. My guess?? The individual foible of one of the COs.... and not continued when he handed over command!
Who will ever know
Howard

[Cardiffbloke]

Originally Posted by Paddy McGinty

Howard,

It sounds like a right sod unfortunately, not sure what to suggest. I'm at university in Aberystwyth and could ask a Dr in biochem surely if anyone knows they would. Trouble what I'm thinking is that anything that takes away gold is going to have a field day corroding bronze, so some sort of electrolysis may be the solution.

Cheers,

Luke

Luke,

ask your man... he might just have the answer....

cheers H

[Peter Brydon]

Luke,
The irony being that, it is costly to get items gold plated these days and I believe mercury gilding is now illegal in this country.

I used to have an acquaintance who worked for a funeral furnisher who could get items gilded and silver plated for a reasonable cost,he refurbished the attached Kings officers helmet plate for me many years ago and made a very good job in my opinion.Unfortunatly I am no longer in contact with him

The problem you have sounds even more difficult to resolve.

Peter.

[steve149c]

Hi guys,

"Borrowed" this from another site, http://www.finishing.com/140/22.shtml

First check out what is the base material. If the base is brass and under coated with Nickel you can strip using Sulphuric acid-glycerol based stripper or sulphuric acid -copper sulphate based stripper. If the base is SS you can strip it with sodium cyanide solution. If a electroplated watch whose effective surface area is between 0.10 to 0.15 sq.dm is plated for 3.0 to 3.5 micron it will have approximately 40 to 80 milligrams of gold.

Venkat Raja
plating supervisor
Walkerton, Ontario, Canada

Hope this helps

Steve

[Cardiffbloke]

Thanks Steve
but what is SS? and where on earth do you get this stuff outlined in the text?
H

[Luke H]

Originally Posted by Cardiffbloke

Thanks Steve
but what is SS? and where on earth do you get this stuff outlined in the text?
H

SS I imagine is solid/sterling silver.

Luke

[Rockape]

Dear H,

Plating a metal object involves the transfer of electrons from one metal to another. One metal is a donor of electrons whilst the other is the receiver. To reverse the process of electroplating, one has to transfer the electrons back to a recipient metal so that gold (Au) turns to Au+ (ionic form). The trick is finding a receptor metal that is willing to accept the electrons back from gold. Metals are grouped according to their electrode potential. Unfortunately, Gold has the most positive potential of all of the common metals so it will displace all the others. However, strong oxidising agents would do the trick. These are dangerous substances that should only be handled by an experienced chemist.

Element Potential (Volts)
======= =========
Lithium -3.04
Potassium -2.92
Calcium -2.87
Sodium -2.71
Magnesium -2.37
Aluminum -1.67
Manganese -1.85
Zinc -0.76
Chromium -0.74
Iron -0.44
Nickel -0.26
Tin -0.14
Lead -0.13
Hydrogen +0.00
Copper +0.34
Silver +0.80
Mercury +0.80
Platinum +1.18
Gold +1.70
(Stark, 1982, p70-72)

In common language it means that there is no inexpensive way to reverse by electrochemical methods.

Stark, J,G., Wallace, H.G., Chemistry data Book (2nd Ed.) John Murray, London, 1982

Regards,

Garry

[Cardiffbloke]

Garry

roger that..... So who might be able to help, i have 2 extremely rare badges that need to be stripped of the gold and i dont mind paying.... Do you know a company or individual that will do it?
H

[GregN]

Hi guys, here in Canada we quite often run across plated medals. It appears it was the "Canuk" thing to do. Most collectors accept these plated medals as ok, only because they are so common and it is a real pain in the *** to remove the plating. Now I have theory (which I admit I have not tried myself with my own plated medals because I'm a big chicken), so here it is.

Take the plated badge/medal, immerse it in liquid nitrogen (talk to you physician, he uses it to freeze off moles and birthmarks). Let it sit in the nitrogen until ir reaches almost absolute zero (-265* of something like that), take it out and drop it in water. Now extreme caution is needed as the temperature difference will be huge as will be the reaction/EXPLOSION. The goal is to contract the metal relative to the plating. The immersion in the water should be able to pop the plating off. THIS IS JUST A THEORY. I would only attempt this with proper safety procedures in place like protective glasses, gloves, shrapnel screen and medical staff close by.

I buy the lad who tries this first a beer, if you don't live in Canada, I'll send the funds to buy a beer to your hospital bed

Greg

[3748 Hussar]

Hi Howard, there is a guy who does repairs, "very good ones".What do you need doing ? stripping and re-gilting !. I will forward his telephone number on to you.

Tony C