At the benchCleaning & polishing
Dull is usuallyjust dirty.
Most gold that looks tired is not worn out. At 21 and 22 carat the colour lives in the metal, and the metal has not changed. What dulls a piece is a film of soap, skin and years, and the film comes off at the bench.
The shine wasnever gone.
High-carat gold barely tarnishes. A 22 carat bangle is nine parts gold in ten, and gold itself does not corrode, so what a dull piece has gained is a coating: soap, lotion, skin, the kitchen, the years.
A clean lifts that coating off the surface and out of the pattern, where engraving and granulation hold it hardest. Nothing leaves the piece but the dirt. It weighs afterwards exactly what it weighed before, which matters in a shop where gold is priced across a scale. What the scale says it is worth →
Polishing is a different job, and we are straight about it. A polish cuts. Taking a scratch out means taking the whole surface down to meet it, and a whisker of gold leaves with every pass. Done rarely and done well, that is nothing. Done every visit, it slowly files the piece away. So we clean first, and polish only when the surface truly asks for it.
Rhodium is the third job on this page and the odd one out, because it is not about dirt at all. It is a bright white plating over white gold, and the reason a white ring turns faintly yellow at the wear points as the years pass. Re-plating brings the white back across the whole piece.
Same piece,one clean apart.
What a clean changes is easiest shown, not said: the same bangle twice, with nothing between the two frames but the work of the bench. No metal is added and none is cut. The film of years comes off, and the colour underneath was there all along.
The dull pattern
A worn 22 carat bangle before its clean, the engraving greyed by years of soap and skin. Flat, honest light.
The colour back
The identical bangle and framing after the clean. Same light, same angle, nothing restaged but the surface.
Not sure whether yours needs a clean, a polish or neither? Bring it in. That question is answered with a look, not an appointment, Tuesday to Sunday at the counter.
After the clean
One job at the counter tends to point to the next: keeping the brightness at home, mending what the clean uncovered, and reading the marks it made legible again.
Out of the drawer,onto the wrist.
If a piece got put away for looking tired, bring it in before you write it off. More often than not it needs a clean, not a repair, and we will tell you which across the counter.
364-378 Prospect Road, Kilburn SA 5084
Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30am – 6pm