Thread: Gold plating

I just got a Shumate Golden Eagle off the bay and I can see that the tang was gold plated orginally. There's jsut barely enough left that you know it was. Has anyone ever had a tang replated before? Is it worth it? Ebay pics are below, because I KNOW you'll ask. You can see some gold at the pivot.

TIA

GOOG

Personally, I think the fact the gold is gone is a plus. It's not very durable anyway. You can get these kits for doing it a home but they are not very good. Quality plating is a whole process using multi coatings and is an elaborate process. Just contact a plater.

Actually, if you did elect to have the tang plated once again you could do a good job of it.

There is a reason that the gold wash on the blades of straight razors is so fragile. This is because the layer of gold is so very thin. It needs to be so in order to allow the other detail work on the design to show through it. It is by reason of this thinness of the metal deposit that we call this gold wash instead of gold plate.

You would not be burdened with that limitation when plating the tang. The only design elements there are stamped into the metal and would not be obscured by a reasonable layering of plate. Therefore, you could allow the plating facility to lay down a normal, thick(er) layering of gold which would certainly have more staying power.

That said, it must be admitted that gold plate is somewhat soft and it would still be subject to more wear than, say, hard chrome or nickel.

A last note: If you do elect to go through this process you must understand that the surface finish of plated metal will never be better than the base surface to which the plating is added. That means if you want a mirror polish you first have to polish your steel to that level of finish and only then send it out for plating. I have gone through this procedure when silver-plating some brass model pieces. It worked a treat and the silver plating ended up with a deep and luscious finish, but I can assure you that it is only because I spent some hours of quality time polishing the brass to a jeweler's finish beforehand.

YOu would have to pre-plate with another metal like nickel before plating with gold - gold will not adhere to steel (rubs off just like that) but it will adhere to nickel or copper. A big plus for using copper somewhere along the line is that it can be laid down very quickly and thickly, so you can treat it like a small-scale body-soldering operation to fill in little pits, sanding and re-plating before laying on the gold. The difference in thickness between gold wash and gold plate is minimal - measured in microns, so you aren't really going to obscure much. In fact, any minor surface defects are visible through the plating, so thorough prepping is a must. Also, a lower carat gold is more resistant to wear than a higher carat gold.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by greatgoogamooga

Is it worth it?

That's probably the most critical question and, in my opinion, no it's not. But my opinion isn't the one that counts. Yours is. How much do you want a gold plated tang Shumate? If you want it enough follow the advice above, finish the razor really nicely, find a plater and send it out for plating, then maybe it is. I don't like gold plating on anything that gets handled or used much, though.