During the gold plated process, the jewellery items are coated with gold to enhance the look and feel giving grater wear ability of a piece of jewellery. For 18 karat gold plating process following steps are followed for best plating results. 

Karat is a measurement of the ratio of gold to other metals or alloys and they are measured on a scale from 0 to 24. The higher the karat number, the more gold there is and the less other metal content. Other metals and alloys could include copper, nickel, silver, or palladium. Sanars jewellery items varies from 10K to 18K Plating.

Preparation of Surface & Cleaning

The surface of the metal to be plated must be very clean, so oils or dirt must be removed, and the piece must be polished.  Surface preparation can include stripping, polishing, sandblasting, tumbling, etc. The use of solvents, abrasive materials, alkaline cleaners, acid etch, water, or a combination can be used to increase the adherence. Typical methods to clean include acid or non-acid ultrasonic bath and a high rpm rouge wheel polishing which also keeps the plating tank free of contamination.

After the surface is prepared, and a visual inspection is done, electro cleaning, ultrasonic cleaning, or steaming, usually takes place. This second, deeper, cleaning step must follow to ensure metal is free of oils and dirt, which helps produce superior plating results. Steam cleaning blasts off any remaining oils that managed to hang on during the polishing phase.  Take special note of intricate jewellery that has many nooks and crannies.

Rinse and Strike Process

Next the jewellery pieces are rinsed thoroughly with water to remove any cleaning agents before doing the first flash layer. This is a strike layer to adheres a thin layer of high-quality nickel plating to the base metal. In order to improve the bonding between the plating and the underlying surface, occasionally a buffer layer must be applied between them. With costume jewellery the base metal would contaminate the tanks with the gold in them, so a different metal is plated prior to the gold plating.

Additionally this step is used when the base metal, like copper, is known to atomically migrate outside of the gold layer to create spots of tarnish after plating. This strike step creates a barrier between the reactive base metal and the plated metal. This extends the life of the bright gold plating.

The Base Coat & Final Coating

If a base coat below gold is used, it is usually nickel. There can be many layers of plating done on one particular piece. For example a gold-plated silver article is usually a silver substrate with layers of copper, nickel, and gold deposited on top of it. With time, temperature and voltage carefully controlled, the piece is submerged into the plating solution to attract ions of gold or the final metal that will show on the surface. Different metals require different voltages and temperatures.

The items to be plated are hung from a cathode bar, which is a pole with a negative electrical charge going through it. The pieces of jewellery connected to the cathode bar are also negatively charged. When the jewellery items are submerged in the tank an electrical charge is applied and the negatively charged jewellery attracts the positively charged ions present in the solution. The positively charged metal ions are submersed in the solution bath. When the cathode bar is lowered into the bath the metal jewellery gets plated.  The plating thickness can be controlled by adjusting the immersion time in the plating tank.

Final Rinse & Drying Jewellery

Finally, we rinse off the pieces with water and then hang them to dry. The pieces are hung, preferably not touching each other, in order to dry.  Occasionally, the immersion step into the chosen plating metal needs to be repeated. In order to improve the bonding between the plating and the underlying surface, occasionally a buffer layer must be applied between them.