People often say that gilding, wrapping gold, sticking gold, gilding, drawing gold, etc., as well as bronzing "gold", sub-"gold" and other names related to gold. These titles are related to the gold making process or products, some crafts or products use real gold, and some are yellow other metals. People are often confused, but a brief introduction is as follows:

Gilt

This is an ancient traditional craft, which archaeology confirms started in the middle of the Warring States Period. The gilding process mainly combines gold and mercury (mercury) into gold-mercury paint, and then applies the gold-mercury paint on the utensils according to the pattern or requirements, and then bakes them to evaporate the mercury, so that the gold is firmly attached to the surface of the utensils Now, you can apply gold mercury paint several times as needed to increase the effect of gilding. The gilt on the utensils is strong and not easy to fall off.

gold plated

The real electroplating gold plating process has not been developed for a long time, with a history of more than 100 years. However, its technology is very mature, and most works of art, jewelry, noble decorations and precision workpieces are now plated with gold. The gold-plated layer has the functions of anti-corrosion, wear resistance and high temperature, and the golden luster is extremely beautiful. Gold plating methods include cyanide gold plating, low cyanide gold plating and cyanide-free gold plating. Gold plating is divided into two categories, one is gold plating of homogeneous materials, and the other is gold plating of heterogeneous materials. Homogeneous material gold plating refers to the gold plating of the surface of gold jewelry. Its significance is to improve the brightness and color of jewelry. Gold plating of heterogeneous materials refers to the gold plating on the surface of non-gold materials, such as silver gold plating and copper gold plating. Its meaning is to replace the color of the material with the luster of gold, so as to improve the ornamental effect of jewelry.

The quality of gold plating depends on the thickness of the gold-plated layer and the brightness and darkness. The current international standard for gold-plated jewelry is: the thickness of good gold-plated jewelry is 10 microns to 25 microns, and the average gold-plated jewelry coating is 2 microns to 3 microns. Gold plating" is called "gold coating", which is an inexpensive jewelry craft.

According to its technological characteristics, there are two kinds of gold plating: non-cyanide gold plating and cyanide gold plating. At present, the quality of gold plating is better with cyanide (potassium cyanide) gold plating, and its color, adhesion and wear resistance are better than those of cyanide-free gold plating. In recent years, with the advancement of electroplating technology, new breakthroughs have been made in the gold-plated process. In the past, gold-plated jewelry only had one gold color. Gold-plated jewelry in France, the United States, and Japan now has three colors, and even more colors. Colored gold electroplating, called tricolor gold, includes rose, silver, gold, black, and blue. Generally speaking, the coating of homogeneous gold plating does not need to be too thick, it only needs to reach 2 microns. Heterogeneous gold plating should be thicker. Some countries stipulate that the gold-plated coating of such products must reach more than 10 microns, and some international companies have higher requirements for the gold-plated coating, and it is qualified to reach 12.5 microns.

paste gold

Gold foil requires gold foil as raw material, which can be pasted into a smooth surface or processed into exquisite patterns. The carved beams and faces of statues in many palace temples are often gilded, making the buildings extremely brilliant. Gold sticking is a traditional and special craft. Before the modern gold wrapping craft was born, sticking gold and wrapping gold mean the same thing. It is to stick a thin gold foil on the surface of the utensil to protect it. Thanks to the modern gold cladding process, the gilding process has become a unique process. The traditional gold sticking process is to first make high-quality gold into a very thin gold foil. At this time, the gold foil has strong adhesion and good mutual attraction to some smooth materials. In the past, except for some handicrafts that needed gold, a lot of gold was used for Buddha statues, signboards, buildings, etc. Gold paste has high application value for some products that cannot be processed by gold plating and gold coating technology. In foreign countries, many large-scale decorations and some non-metallic items are processed with gold paste technology.

Gild

Thin gold-clad gold foil is mainly used for luxury ornaments and architectural decoration, which is somewhat similar to gilding. Thick gold-clad gold flakes, this process is often used for large metal crafts and the exterior of some jewelry. At present, there are many gold-clad jewelry imported from abroad. The appearance of this kind of jewelry is the same as that of gold jewelry. The gold is bright and colorful, which makes people love it, but the price is lower. This effect is attributed to its "fancy dress", that is, the gold-clad layer. The inner materials of gold-covered jewelry are not metals such as gold and silver, but some alloy materials such as aluminum, copper, and zinc. The surface of these materials is wrapped with a layer of gold, and the inner materials are wrapped like wrapping paper. Play a decorative role, so as to be comparable to gold jewelry. The pros and cons of gold-clad jewelry depend on the success or failure of the gold-clad craftsmanship. This process has high requirements. For example, gold-clad jewelry produced in the United States must indicate its characteristics and the proportion of K gold. The amount of gold must account for one-tenth of the weight of the entire jewelry, otherwise it will be unqualified. If the gold-covered material is made of gold below 10K, or the gold-covered weight is less than one-twentieth of the weight of the entire jewelry, the name "gold-covered" shall not be used. Gold-clad jewelry has a high wear resistance. We can see some gold-clad jewelry that has been used for decades. The appearance is still the same, and the inner core is not exposed at all. Its service life is longer than that of gold-plated jewelry.

outline in gold

This is a traditional process. Gold is dissolved in mercury and salt solutions, and then the mercury and salt solutions are heated and evaporated, and then gold powder is obtained. With such gold powder, it can be used for decoration and even drawing. Copy scriptures, etc.

K gold

The "K" of K gold is the abbreviation of the foreign word "Karat". The complete representation is as follows: Karatgold (that is, K gold), the measurement method of K gold is: pure gold is 24K (100% pure gold), The gold content of 1K is about 4.166%. The method of calculating the gold content with "K" comes from a carob tree on the Mediterranean coast. The carob tree has light red flowers, and the pods are about 15 cm long. The bean kernels are brown and can be made into glue. No matter where this tree grows, the size of the bean kernels is exactly the same, so people used it as a standard for measuring weight in ancient times. Over time, it became a unit of measurement for measuring precious, subtle objects. At that time, diamonds and gold were also measured using this unit, which is "Karat". It was not until 1914 that "Karat" was defined as the current standard internationally. This year, K gold has become the focus of the jewelry market. Strolling through the jewelry counters of the store, facing the colorful K gold jewelry, consumers may ask: Are these all K gold jewelry? How is K gold made?

K gold is made of pure gold and other materials. Since the jewelry made of pure gold is too soft, it is difficult to set all kinds of exquisite jewelry, especially when pearls, gems and jadeite are inlaid with pure gold, it is easy to lose. Therefore, since ancient times, people have known that in pure gold Adding an appropriate amount of silver, copper, zinc and other metals can increase the strength and toughness of gold, and the gold jewelry made in this way is called K gold jewelry.

K gold can be prepared into various colors according to needs. For example, gold and copper are mixed with red, which is called red K gold. There are many colors of K gold jewelry that are popular in the world, including orange red, champagne, apple green. , yellow, red, turquoise, milky white, black and more than a dozen, collectively referred to as colored K gold jewelry.

In addition, there is K white gold. Gold mixed with more than 25% palladium or nickel is white gold, and its main component is gold, and its name is K white gold.

Everyone knows the meaning and calculation method of K gold, so it is not difficult to know how many kinds of K gold there are. According to international standards, K gold is divided into 24 kinds, namely 1K to 24K. However, there are less than 24 types of K gold used for jewelry. At present, the jewelry materials used in all countries in the world are not less than 8K. In this way, there are actually 17 types of K gold that are actually counted as jewelry.

Among these 17 kinds of K materials, 18K and 14K are the most used, and they are the main jewelry raw materials in the jewelry industry of various countries. In order to enrich the expressive power of various K golds, foreign countries adjust the proportioning coefficients of other alloys to synthesize K golds of different colors without changing the content standard. According to some jewelry magazines, there are 450 kinds of gold ratios, and 20 kinds are the most commonly used. For example, there are 6 kinds in 14K: red, red-yellow, dark yellow, light yellow, dark yellow, green-yellow; 18K also has 5 kinds: red, reddish, yellow, light yellow, dark yellow.

The above process technologies are all gold. Although the following process names are related to the word "gold", the materials used are not gold.

bronzing

For the sake of appearance, some hardcover books or certificates are printed in golden light, which is what people call bronzing. In fact, the material used for bronzing is aluminum oxide or copper powder, and the font is firmly hot on the book cover by pressing it with a font at high temperature. This is mainly for decoration.

Yakin

At present, there are some yellow craft jewelry on the market, the price is relatively low, the sales staff call it sub-gold jewelry. In fact, Asian gold is not real gold, or even contains no gold at all. It's just that the sub-gold has the luster and color of 18K gold, and some have the corrosion resistance of 18K gold and are not easy to change color. my country has carried out certain research and application of gold materials. The developed sub-gold is very similar to gold in color, and its corrosion resistance is slightly inferior to that of gold. For example, its discoloration: after 100 hours of corrosion in a constant temperature test box, it can still maintain a high gloss without discoloration; it basically does not discolor after two years of atmospheric corrosion in an indoor environment. Jewelry made of sub-gold material does not need gold plating, which not only saves a lot of gold for the country, but also avoids environmental pollution caused by cyanide gold plating.

Jin Gold

This metal contains more than ten kinds of metal elements, and its processing performance and color are very similar to those of gold, and even its anti-oxidation, wear-resistant, and corrosion-resistant properties surpass those of gold. However, the proportion is only 40% of gold, and the price is 1/10 of gold. Jinjin is very suitable for the production of imitation gold jewelry. Jinjin is widely used in industry and partially replaces gold materials.

rare gold

Rare gold jewelry is jewelry made of rare gold materials. Rare gold material is a novel gold imitation material with copper as the main raw material and rare earth and other components added. In view of its above-mentioned characteristics superior to general imitation gold materials, it becomes a material for manufacturing higher-grade imitation gold jewelry.

Jewelry made of gold is more expensive. Ordinary gold-plated imitation gold jewelry is cheap, but the coating is very easy to change color and lose its decorative ability. Jewelry made of rare gold materials can show 18K or 20K yellow gold, not easy to oxidize and fade, very suitable for daily use. Recently, some domestic manufacturers have also developed a new rare gold jewelry, called rare gold magnetic medicine health jewelry. In addition to the characteristics of ordinary rare gold jewelry, this kind of jewelry also has special medical effects, and has a certain curative effect on some common diseases and chronic diseases. According to the identification of some domestic medical research institutions, its health care effect is more obvious. The successful development of rare gold magnetic medicine health jewelry marks a breakthrough in the use of jewelry, and it will open up a new way for the multi-purpose jewelry. But it must be noted that although rare gold jewelry can be 18K or 20K gold in color, it is not karat gold, so do not mistake it for karat gold in order to suffer economic losses.

Some jewelry on the market are stamped with imprints. In addition to the imprint of the manufacturer, there are also the fineness symbols of the jewelry, such as 24K, 18K, Pt900, etc. Some jewelry is 18KP or 18KF, the former is 18K gold-plated, the latter is imitation 18K gold, such as gold and so on.