movement parts coating?

[justin time]

What exactly is the gold coloring/ plating of the movement parts? cadmium, gold irridate?

[watchfriends]

It is 18k, 20k and 24k gold (24k is often to soft and hold not for a long time):thumb: but regard old movements was made with a silverlayer
under the gold. Some companys use gold without the silver, the result was bad because the silver saves the brass.

here an examble without silver:

http://pw.mikrolisk.de/gal/albums/Uhren-1/Seel_Wk1.jpg

- look at repair category for more details about the silverlayer under the gold.

[Tom McIntyre]

Early watches before the mid 19th century used fire gilding. An amalgam of mercury and gold was applied to the parts, that were then heated to drive off the mercury.

Once electro-gilding was established that process was used.

In both processes, the net effect was that pure gold is deposited in the surface.

A key part of the process is the surface preparation or pebbling. In English and American work, that process is carried out by hand by hammering the material with the end of a wire brush. The Swiss appear to have used a different process. Apparently it involved the use of a preliminary silver plating step. Swiss gilding is much lighter in color than English or American gilding.

[watchfriends]

Yes Tom is right after 1920 the watch was made with sand or pearls before electro-silver and gold have made the finish. If the gold looks darken like my watch it was not with silver, i had seen some elgin movements which was made with this.

The silverpaste which was used for swiss movement's has a covering effect. That was for cover dents and scatchs on movement-plate.
The gold protect the silver for weather so the plate has shine for 100 years :)

[justin time]

Can the process but done" in house", or are there services for the process?

[Tom McIntyre]

Are you asking about restoration or original manufacturing?

In general the work was done at the factory in a "wet" area. It is important to keep some distance between this kind of work and watch work.

There are very few people who can do a really competent job of regilding. The biggest problems are matching the color and getting the pebbled/grained finish correct.

Botched work is off color, has the wrong graining detail and ruins edges and corners on the work. It also generally degrades the engraving.

[watchfriends]

show us your watch an i will tell you next step. Sometimes it needs only an electro-gilding :)

[Tom McIntyre]

Watchfriends, all the gilding processes I am aware of require the old gilt material to be removed by a reverse electroplating in order to get rid of color variations. If you just plate over the old surface, the color will not be uniform. It is true that you may not need surface preparation if they are no surface blemished (gouges, scratches) to be removed.

[watchfriends]

Yes Tom but in germany Jewellers and Goldsmiths make this job for me it cost 14 EUR = 20 $ for gilding. You can go to a watchmaker and let remove all steel parts and jewels and thand you give this a goldsmith, he has enoth colours of gold variations.

He remove the old giliding and make it. That is only the way if the plate is in good condition.

But have the plate scatch's f.e. so it is a much expensive way to make it like new.

[Tom McIntyre]

That is about the same as here - except for the price. It is closer to $150 here I think. (I have not had the job done in the last 10 years.)

[Veritas]

Sounds like it would be worth it, to have a European do the job for you, considering the costs on this side of the ocean.

[justin time]

Under flourescent light the color is a bit bright, but their variation in tone show.

The upper piece is quite gold, uncleaned. The lower larger piece was cleaned. I show the smaller lower piece because that is what the cleaned piece looked like prior to cleaning, which I have a question about as well.

The cleaning was done in a L&R console with ultrasonic. After the cleaning much of the dark, heavy staining was not removed. The balance cock on the small piece shows this dark staining.

To remove this staining from the cleaned piece, I rubbed it with a material I use for metal cleaning. Although the staining removed with little effort, it seems to have removed the gold coloring, and left this silver finish.

I should know better than to use my cleaning material without testing first, since it is coated with some sort of chemical.

The main issue is, should I have expected the L&R console to have removed all of the staining? I did run the cycle twice. extra fine cleaner and #3 rinse

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c177/a7tl46/3watchcolor.jpg

[watchfriends]

hello,

swiss type. I will make a cleaning-exercise for you tody