Enamel Paint on Jewelry

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jeg121

New member
Joined
Mar 27, 2021
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2
Hi. I'm new to the forum and am very happy to have found such a wealth of information, you guys are amazing.

I've searched the forum and found little information about jewelry with enamel paint on it, but what I have found leads me to believe that I should not waste time trying to remove it and instead just go into the dilute nitric along with the jewlery. It is gold filled, so no need to inquart. Is this correct? I assumed that it needed to be removed and tried a few methods that I found on jewelry and crafts forums before finding this one, but it has proven to be very difficult on some of the pieces. If I dissolve the base metals in nitric, will the enamel also dissolve and if not, will it filter out with no ill effect?

Thanks for any suggestions and advice.

Justin
 
Enamel is just a sort of low melting point colored glass. Some of the additions are metal oxides in various colors so some might leach out in the acid. It shouldn't matter a lot though, the following aqua regia might dissolve some of the oxides from the enamel but compared to the rest of the base metals it should be negligible. The enamel will just end up in your filter in the end.

Göran
 
g_axelsson said:
Enamel is just a sort of low melting point colored glass. Some of the additions are metal oxides in various colors so some might leach out in the acid. It shouldn't matter a lot though, the following aqua regia might dissolve some of the oxides from the enamel but compared to the rest of the base metals it should be negligible. The enamel will just end up in your filter in the end.

Göran

Thanks Goran! I tried a small sample of 2 little cufflinks and exactly what you described seems to be the case when I did. Looks like a very high percentage of the glass enamel ended up in the filter and the filtered nitrate looked normal and clear.

Justin
 
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