Care and Maintenance
Six Month Check-ups
We recommend that you bring your jewelry in for inspection at least twice a year. At this time, we will look for abnormal wear and tear, stone tightness and integrity, and the strength and size of prongs and stone-settings. We may recommend necessary repairs.
Cleaning
Diamond rings should be cleaned regularly. Oils in shampoos, soaps, lotions, and fingerprints bond to the surface of your diamonds rendering them less brilliant. There are many jewelry cleaners designed for at home use, ranging from ‘jar and brush’ cleaners to small sonic cleaners to even small steam cleaners. Jewelers with full service shops like us will have industrial strength heated ultrasonic cleaners as well as steam cleaners that will professionally clean a jewelry item better than any home cleaning system. We welcome anyone to stop in as jewelry cleaning is free. A good at home cleaner is a small container of hot water with a few drops of dish detergent and a real soft tooth brush, and or simple green.
Polishing
Polishing is the process of removing small scratches and restoring a smooth shiny surface to a ring. This is obtained by using a high speed polishing wheel with various polishing compounds. In some situations it may be necessary to use some preparatory abrasives such as emery paper or a file. Normally we will recommend a “rouge” polishing, rouge is the least aggressive of the polishing compounds and will return the metal surface to a like new shine.
Rhodium Plating
Rhodium plating or re-dipping is an electro-plate process or (thin covering) that should be re-done every six months on mass produced white gold rings. A thorough cleaning and polished is required before re-plating. We use the whitest white gold alloys available, so plating is not 100% necessary. Most rings that are mass produced will use a lower quality allow, to reduce cost, which in return will leave you with a faint yellow color gold, that is why they actually rhodium plate the rings.
Resizing
Finger sizes can change from summer to winter, during different times of the day, after eating salty foods, and during pregnancy. Since multiple ring re-sizing’s is not practical or conducive to the longevity of your ring, we recommend finding a "happy medium" finger size that suits you best.
Preventing Damage
Diamonds are very hard and durable but are not indestructible. Although diamonds are very hard, they are also somewhat brittle and therefore susceptible to chipping or cracking if struck on a hard surface just right. The malleability that make Gold & Platinum great metals for holding gemstones also make the metals prone to scratching, bending, etc. Wearing your rings while lifting weights or heavy objects may damage the ring. It's wise to take off your rings while doing yardwork, household chores or playing sports.
Dangers of Chlorine
Gold and diamond rings should not be worn in any environment that contains chlorine. The problem with chlorine is the reaction with the alloy metals used in the various gold alloys, especially white gold. The chlorine chemically breaks down the alloy metals, leading to corrosion and brittleness. This in turn leads to the breakdown and failure of prongs, crowns, solders, and welds. Platinum rings are not susceptible to these reactions with chlorine. However, it is better to be safe than sorry because even in some platinum rings jewelers will use a gold solder to hold crowns, etc. Our advice is to not wear any diamond rings in Chlorine.
Traveling
We recommend that when traveling keep your jewelry with you as much as possible. When traveling to the ocean, we recommend leaving your items off when swimming or snorkeling.
