Should I FLASH PLATE My Jewelry?

Dímelo mi gente, what up? It's your boy Gus from GusVillaJewelry.com back with another Q&A Fridays, where I answer your burning hot questions about jewelry. As always, everybody knows the rules. I put up a post on Instagram, I ask you to ask me anything your little heart desires about jewelry and watches. And this week, I actually got some questions from our last Q&A Fridays video. We're going to be answering those today. Things like, why do we jewelers flash plate jewelry? And where the hell do we source our materials from? Where are we getting all this gold and silver that we're actually using on our pieces? All these answers and more in today's episode. 

What is the last day to purchase gold over silver? That has been the response I've gotten from the last week's episode of Q&A Fridays when I said that we were going to be doing away with gold over silver. I knew it was going to be bad. I didn't think it was going to be this bad. The last day to purchase gold over silver is at the end of November, after Black Friday. I will not be putting it on the website. The only way that you're going to have access to anything in gold or silver at that point is if either we have it in stock because it's one of our remaining pieces or it's anything maybe over 500 or 600 grams. Otherwise, I will not be doing gold over silver.

So, you have until the end of November. If you're interested in a piece that's plated silver with gold bonding on top of it, go on our website, order it now. Because after November, you will not see it anymore. And, you're going to either have to be forced to buy silver or actual gold. Who knew? Next.

Where do you source your materials from? It's a question that for whatever reason, I get asked all the time. As if it were like this superior nation that sources better gold. For instance, I get questions like, "Oh, I only want Italian gold," as if Italian gold was something more insane or more precious or something. Gold is a periodic table element, precious metal. Okay? I don't know what the chemical bonding is. I don't know what the atoms are. I don't know any of that, all right? I'm a freaking jeweler. But I do know that it's exactly the same. Listen, if Tarzan from the mountains of Congo spits it out of his *******, and it's gold, I'm going to use it to make a link chain. I could care less where it's from. Don't ask me where it's from. I buy it from the refineries. I don't know where they get it from. Chances are, they're getting it from some shadiness.

You know how that goes. However, all I know is that Au is Au, and that's exactly what I use. Same thing with silver. There's no like, 'Argentine silver is more precious.' It's silver, bro. It's the same thing, all right? I get it from the refineries. Where they get it from? Who the hell knows? That's not my problem. All I know is that I do my legal due diligence. They need to do theirs. And ultimately, if the feds come knocking, I'm clean my boy.

Gus, why the flash plate? Especially on 18K chains and above? The flash plate is such a hot debated topic. Ever since the world of the internet knew what flash plating was. Before, 5 years ago, we used to do Chrome dips all the time. It's been going on for 20, 30 years. But the minute the internet trolls came on were like, 'Don't flash plate my stuff!' All of a sudden, it's like taboo. The flash plate, when it was literally being done for 20 years. But let me explain to you what flash plating is for.

If you show up to, let's say for instance, a McDonald's commercial. Are they going to slap that disgusting McDonald's burger on that commercial? No, you're going to paint it. You're going to make it look beautiful. You're going to make it look super, super nice because it's all about presentation. It's all about that wow factor, right? Same thing happens with a jewelry piece.

Chances are, there's a little bit of solder somewhere, maybe a little bit scuffed up, maybe there's some little scratches or something like that. Or you want to protect the piece. You flash plate it for two main reasons: to cover up any imperfections that the piece has, so when the piece is opened up, people can say, "Oh my God, this is beautiful," or to actually protect the piece. Let's say for instance, you're going out, you're popping bottles to the club, again. I don't know why the hell I keep saying popping bottles in the club.

But let's just say you're doing that, right? And you spill it on yourself and it's all stained and stuff like that. You scuff up a chain. If it has no protective coat on it, chances are it's going to scratch a little bit easier than if there was a nice protective coat on top of it. Guys, there's nothing wrong with flash plating your jewelry. Stop it. There's no, "Oh, I want the natural color of gold." I can make that natural color of gold look whatever I want it to look like. It doesn't matter. Unless you're getting 22K. I manipulate the color of the gold. Look at me, sure. I'm the C to now. It doesn't... There's no like golden standard. "Oh, my gold should look like this." No, bro. Let people flash plate your piece. Trust me, it's a good thing. It's as if I broke my leg and you're like, "No, don't put a cast on it. The internet says they don't do it." Stop being ridiculous. Flash plate your pieces. It's going to only protect it and cover up any sort of little imperfections it has. Why wouldn't you want that? Why? Answer that! That should be the question.

Are you able to make a more pink or red tone Cuban Link instead of your typical rose gold color? Let me tell you what actually makes rose gold. People have no idea. They think that rose gold comes from the ground and gold is only yellow. No, there's no such thing as white natural gold or rose natural gold. No, all you're doing is you're mixing it with a different alloy. In this particular case, the only alloy that makes something rose: copper, that's it. It has a bunch of copper in it.

And then with certain mixtures of copper and zinc or platinum or palladium, blah, blah, blah, blah, you make different shades of pink and then when you mix it with yellow, hence the rose gold. If you want a purely red, red, red, red, red actual like rose gold that has really, really intense, all you do is mix it with copper, nothing else. However, it becomes way too hard to work. You need other metal metals in that alloy like zinc for instance, silver and palladium that are much softer to make it work because if you just grab a bar, say for instance, you're making a 18K gold chain and I just grab 75% fine gold and I just bring it down with copper.

To make Cuban link chains or to make most chains, you're going to need something softer than that because it hardens the metal too much. You need some sort of silver, something in there to spice it up. So as much as you want to have that really red, intense color, you still need to worry about, 'How am I actually going to work with this with my hand?' Because if it makes it unworkable, then you're either way. So, you got to put something else in there.

Can a Cuban be filed more to bring the thickness down and allow the buyer to get a wider mm without it weighing a whole lot? Let me give you the typical example of what this question means. Let's say for instance, I go down to one of these little jewelry stores that think they know what they're doing and they ask, "Hey man, I want a 22 mm but I want it to weigh 500 grams." So in other words, I want it to look wider but I don't want to have that much weight, hence I don't want to pay so much.

So, they ask the jeweler to file that chain a lot more and essentially what you're doing is you're breaking down the integrity of the piece itself. There is a thing called over-filing a Cuban link chain and what are the cons of that? Two things. Number one, it is going to kink like a .....

And number two, it's not going to lay correctly on your chest. The links are going to be way too flat and they're going to start touching each other on the side and that just leads to a badly worn chain. Now, can you file a chain flatter than other people? Yeah, of course. There are certain shops out there that like to file it very, very flat. However, there's a limit to what you can do. I can't create miracles. You can't come in here and say, 'Hey, I want a 9 mm chain and all I want to do is give you 80 g of gold.' It doesn't work that way. There's a certain limit that you can push.

Can you push it a little bit more? Maybe. But I don't like doing that. I'm not going to compromise the quality of the chain, how good you're going to have this experience once you have it with you long term just because you want to save a couple of bucks and because you want to floss with a bigger size millimeter, paying a little bit less. That's not this shop. I'm not going to do it.

If there are other shops out there that do it, that's on them. But me personally, I'd rather you spend a little bit less money and have a better quality chain. I can't tell you how many times people call me and say, 'Hey Gus, my chain is kinking. Why?' It's because your guy is over filing your chain. Stop doing that. So, to answer your question, yes, you can do it. Do I recommend it? No.

That about does it for another Q&A Fridays. As always, ask your questions down below. Like this video, subscribe to the channel, hit that notification bell. Guys, on Fridays at 12, I upload this video every single week. You will be notified if you just hit that little bell icon. And of course, share this with anyone you think would find some sort of value to this. I do this to educate you guys so that you guys can become well-informed when you're going to go make your next purchase. And if you're going to make your next purchase, GusVillaJewelry.com, watches, timepieces. That's the exact same thing. Pendants, chains, you know the drill. Just go on GusVillaJewelry.com. Our number is on there if you would like to speak to someone as well. If you guys have sent some sort of messages, I sometimes read it in the comments and it says, 'Hey, you guys haven't got back to me.' I have a crap load of subscribers on TikTok, on Instagram. Sometimes we can't get back to you. But hey, here's an idea, there's a telephone number on the website. Pick up the phone and just call us. We're here to help you out. See you guys in the next one.