MJSA: Palladium Plating Solutions

This comes by way of MJSA Journal. I've reprinted the second half of the article only because it's relevant to Palladium.

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SOLUTIONS
Considering the skyrocketing prices of precious metals, is plating an option for your jewelry line

by Rachel V. Katz

WHITE ON WHITE
As rhodium prices creep ever closer to $10,000 an ounce, rhodium plating has become an expensive endeavor. With the popularity of white metals still in full swing, jewelers have had little wiggle room if they want to continue using rhodium plating to enhance the color and durability of their white gold rings. Enter palladium plating. With this PGM at around $450 an ounce, palladium plating is becoming a way to offset some of the expense.

"Its becoming [more commonly used] because the price of rhodium has increased so much," says Massimo Poliero, president of Legor Group in Bressanvido, Italy, which is offering a palladium plating solution for jewelry.

Palladium plating has been used widely in other industries, but its grayer appearance has kept demand in check among jewelers. However, as the increasing price of rhodium has sparked interest among jewelry makers for a replacement, researchers are developing palladium solutions that offer brighter, whiter finishes and are more user-friendly for the small shop.

"It's something that's pretty new for the bench jeweler to be able to do easily in our studio," says Chris Ploof, owner of Chris Ploof Studio in Rudland, Massachusetts, and a technical consultant to the Palladium Alliance International (PAI).

Rather than replacing rhodium, palladium plating can also be used to pre-plate rings and other items, which can then be finished with a rhodium flash. This cuts a jeweler's rhodium need significantly, says Darrell Warren, vice president of metals at Stuller Inc, in Lafayette, Louisiana: "By using the palladium plating solution, they can reduce their rhodium cost by 50 to 60 percent. They've got a bright, white finish that they start with, and then they can reduce to just a flash of rhodium to get the final high luster."

Warren says that interest in the new tabletop palladium plating kit that Stuller is distributing to jewelry makers, which was developed by Jack Lopez of Technology Without Limits in West Warwick, Rhode Island, has been high since its launch this past winter.

"The greatest percentage of people who are buying the palladium solution are doing it to [save money]," says Warren. "They still may need to rhodium plate, but it's going to drastically reduce their costs."

Demand from jewelry makers is likely to spur continued research. "The industry is starving for a rhodium replacement," says Joseph Lipsitz, co-owner of Cohler Enterprises in Baltimore, which also offers a palladium plating solution designed for jewelers. "Rhodium is very unique, and irreplaceable. Therefore, let's save money on it by using a pre-plate."

Matching the durability of rhodium is also an issue, which is part of the reason why Lipsitz sees the potential for palladium plating outside the bridal jewelry sector. He is currently seeing demand for palladium as a substitute among costume jewelry makers in Thailand and some manufacturers of earrings, which get less wear and tear than rings.

"Another benefit of palladium is that you can apply a thicker layer of plating than you can with rhodium," says Linus Drogs, owner of Au Enterprises in Berkley, Michigan, and the casting consultant to PAI. "You can only apply a layer of rhodium that is less than 1 micron in thickness because if you go over that the rhodium darkens, shifting from white to gray to black. People sometimes falsely attribute this to contaminated rhodium solution; however, it is often the result of too thick of a plate. The advantage of palladium is that you can apply a thickness of several microns without experiencing a color shift. We are currently conducting durability studies for palladium plating."

Just how quickly palladium gains additional traction may depend on where the market goes. But for now, the interest in plating and the quest for new, more cost-effective rhodium substitutes is likely to heat up. "There's an unsettled shift in materials in the U.S. plating industry," Vinson says. "We're getting into all kinds of strategy discussions."