Update on Gold-Filled

After suggestions on my Facebook page, I took the coil to a local jeweller, to see if I could have it tested. He was unable to tell me whether the wire was plated or filled, however he did note that the wire was not flaking, which would be a sure sign of plating. He did take the coil for me, and polished it up using some Tripoli and a buffing wheel. You can see the result in the picture - top half, shiny, as I would expect it to be. Bottom half, dull.

Click to zoom

All in all, I must assume that the wire is gold-filled, and this is a puzzle. Does anyone have any suggestions for tumbling gold-filled? Anything different that needs to be done compared to sterling (remembering, however, that the first lot were tumbled in the same tumbler load, so I would have expected them both to be affected)? I have also put more feelers out to see what comes back, so there may be another update yet! At this point, I am assuming that it is gold-filled, and that I will have to attempt to polish it before I can use it.

Trouble With Gold-Filled

Shiny :-) vs. dull :-(

I recently had a request for some gold-filled rings. These are the coils I made from the wire I received, although they were made from two different lengths of wire. They were made at the same time, and tumbled together. The large coil is as expected - beautifully shiny. The small coils are dull and pitted on the surface.

Click to enlarge - you can really see the difference!

My supplier insists that both lengths of wire are gold-filled, so the question becomes one of mandrel size. Has anyone ever experienced gold-filled dulling down with smaller mandrel sizes? Or do you have any other explanation for the difference? 

Please ask your jewellery making friends as well!

Tumbler Love

I love my tumbler. I think it has been one of the most important pieces of equipment I've picked up along my jewellery journey. I don't love it enough to sleep with it, though!

This is my boy, who occasionally decides that cramming himself under the sideboard to sleep on a whole bunch of power cords is comfortable. Go figure.