Pigs' Ear versus a Silk Purse?

[Bruce W Sims]

Hi Folks:
I have been playing with electrolysis and plating for my own amusement and did a search here at the forum concerning plating and replating. Certainly understand that there are strong positions regarding replating silver and gold and I have already written that off. The reason I am writing is that I have found no information regarding anyone who has tried plating as a way of correcting silveroid cases.

SOP for plating would normally be to remove the plating material as well as the under-strata and then polish the surface and reverse the process by adding the sub-strata and the the plating metal of choice. And there in lies my question. For a silveroid case, there would seem to be no plate, though a well-polished case could be plated with.......what? I understand that "SILVEROID" is a nikel-silver alloy and I wonder if the anode would be of silver, nickel or simply another (scrap) silveroid case?

It would be great to hear if anyone has played with any of this.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

[gmorse]

Hi Bruce,

'Nickel-silver' doesn't contain any silver, although it may have other base elements in the alloy.

Regards,

Graham

 

[Bruce W Sims]

Thanks, Graham:

I mocked-up an experiment by taking a care-worn middle and bezel of a presumed silveroid and setting them in solution with a charge to see what would move from positive to negative. The positive bezel developed mild effacing but the negative
middle didn't seem to accumulate much and certainly not enough to offset surface corruption or pitting. I might graduate to Nickel as there are some hints that the middle might have had a plating of some sort.

What sort of treatment do folks in Your neck of the woods use? I'm sure they certainly clean the case but do they try to address any sort of corruption such as oxidation or chemical reactions on the pieces encountered? Thoughts?

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

[gmorse]

Hi Bruce,

The majority of watches I handle, apart from a very few in gold, if they're cased at all are in silver, and the debate about 'patina' goes on and on, so I don't think I can help with the plating matters which are your interest. However, I would be interested to see what corrosion you find on solid nickel cases.

Regards,

Graham