With Honest Crafters’ 40 years of collective experience, we sometimes hear the terms ‘Polishing’ and ‘Gold Plating’ used interchangeably. Both are metalworks dealing with hardware of course, but they are 2 separate services striving for 2 different results.
Polishing results in a shinier surface – you don’t need us to tell you that! But if you take an aged and faded gold Chanel CC logo for polishing, you’d receive a really shiny logo - with its color still faded.
Gold Plating in itself is not polishing for gold hardware – it is a specific process to restore not just shine, but also the vibrancy of the gold back to your original gold hardware. To cut the technical jargon short, it is done chemically or electrochemically involving the transfer of gold atoms into the metal’s chemical bond itself. This means there are metals (such as aluminum, for example) that cannot be gold-plated.
Confusion and interchangeably using both terms may lead to unwanted results. Gold plating may result in a change of color when you only wanted to retain your shiny Silver. On the other hand, Polishing Cloths are harsher than your usual microfibre cleaning cloths, it allows our Bag Specialists to buff away scratches/oils/tarnishes/dullness. This also means you do not want a polishing cloth to be used on your gold-plated hardware as it strips away the plating (plus, plated metals aren't known for their durability!)
Rest-assured, Honest Crafters provide both services - and our specialists on our WhatsApp Hotline are here to assess your hardware and advice you for the best suited services to help you reach your intended goals! Check out some examples from both Polishing and Gold Plating services that Honest Crafters had done!
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