# faulty plating the results



## rich gubbin (Jun 30, 2012)

Hi there,
just a few photos of the roman harvest with suspect plating, the original fault was noticed after a final light hand polich just to remove prints and add an extra gloss. I can only assume that either the non abrasive car polish i used reacted with the epoxy coating/plating or the plating is faulty. To try and improve matters i decided to spend over an hour polishing the hardware to get a uniform finish. Im not sure whether it looks right, i may just take it apart and fit it with different plated hardware. whats your opinions????
Rgrds 
Rich


----------



## Hess (Jun 30, 2012)

Most car wax has a fine grit compound added to help clean the paint   but if you put it on and off by hand it should not be a problem but if done on a machine it can cut just a bit of paint off .  I use Plexus spray on plastic polish and clean up buy hand.  if you dont have that Lemon Pledge is about the same and much cheaper.  can see a bit of a difference but it still looks very good


----------



## patmurris (Jun 30, 2012)

Looks great. 
I can't tell where the plating went wrong...?


----------



## Twissy (Jun 30, 2012)

Looks almost like it's gone down to the brass. The second picture makes the pen seem like it's been assembled using two different kits.
This is quite worrying as the RH is one of my favourite kits that I advertise as a medium to high end set of components. Hopefully David will see the posts and offer some advice.

Other than the plating issues it's a lovely blank, and the fit and finish look spot on.


----------



## chriselle (Jun 30, 2012)

Woops...any kind of polish on any kits..RH or otherwise is a real no-no....ESPECIALLY gold.  The platings are really that thin.


----------



## Chatham PenWorks (Jun 30, 2012)

Disassemble immediately, and put those blanks on a new component set. The blank to plating match is beautiful, but the plating mismatch, ruins it.


----------



## Jjartwood (Jun 30, 2012)

With out a doubt it's a QC problem,it looks like the kit was skip plated and a few pieces 
missed the gold application,like Twissy said it looks like brass now .
It is worth changing out the hardware the tubes are beautiful.
Nice work!
I'm jealous
Mark


----------



## Brooks803 (Jun 30, 2012)

patmurris said:


> Looks great.
> I can't tell where the plating went wrong...?


 
Look at the plating on both ends of the body as well as the entire cap. Then compare that to the plating on the end finial and the front section.

I kinda like the two tone look to it. However, how long will the "new" metal resist tarnishing?


----------



## timberbits (Jun 30, 2012)

*The Cats out of the Bag*

I will come clean on the plating issue.

I often get asked by my customers why my gold titanium pens look identical to the upgrade gold pens, where as other manufacturers there is a drastic difference in colour tone between their gold titanium and gold kits. I have managed to tip-toe around the issue for about 4 years now.

I have managed to keep this a trade secret for a few years now but I guess I should explain it to everyone now.

As a pen turner, I have alway used the Gold Titanium finish because of its durability but didn't like using it because it was alway a different tone to the 24ct gold. When you put two together on display, customers would always grab the 24ct finish first because that was the gold they have been use to with jewellery. 

Dayacom would use 22ct or 10ct in their high end pens over Gold Titanium because the Gold Titanium looks pretty crappy compared to a real gold finish.

In a meeting in Taiwan with 4 older Gentlemen with over 100 years pen making experience between them, we sat down to iron out specifications for some of my pens. I raised this problem about the Gold Titanium finish.

The solution was easy and very cost effective. 

For an additional $0.40 a kit over the straight gold titanium, You put down a gold titanium layer then put an upgrade gold plating layer over the gold titanium. That way while it is in showroom condition the gold looks great.

After the pen is in use, as you wear away the gold layer you slow expose the gold titanium plating underneath. Compared to a usual upgrade gold plating where you expose brass, then the brass will tarnish because there is no protective finish on the brass. This way you get great gold durability without the crappy gold titanium colour.



rich gubbin said:


> Hi there,
> just a few photos of the roman harvest with suspect plating, the original fault was noticed after a final light hand polich just to remove prints and add an extra gloss. I can only assume that either the non abrasive car polish i used reacted with the epoxy coating/plating or the plating is faulty. To try and improve matters i decided to spend over an hour polishing the hardware to get a uniform finish. Im not sure whether it looks right, i may just take it apart and fit it with different plated hardware. whats your opinions????
> Rgrds
> Rich



Rich - 1st of all there is no such thing as a non-abrasive car polish, its like say a non-abrasive sandpaper. I think the earlier responses have answered this quite well. After an hour polishing, you have stripped away the upgrade gold finish and exposed the gold titanium layer underneath, if you keep going you will get down to solid brass. To get down to the gold titanium it normally take months if not years to happen under normal daily use of the pen. 

The splotches or scratches you tried to remove were either caused in the transportation from the factory in Taiwan to our warehouse in Australia or from the transportation from our warehouse in Australia to you in the UK - courier companies are known to miss handle parcel which could of caused a scratch. The other cause may be a chemical reaction with the gules you use or the chemical you use to polish. Either way I am alway happy to replace the parts or give you a full refund.

Let me know what you guys think and how I am able to improve the results. I approach my pen making with the pen maker in mind.

I can send feed back to the pen factories and improve results for all of us.

Regards

David


----------



## Chatham PenWorks (Jun 30, 2012)

David,

  While gold ti may not be the prettiest, it is durable, and really doesn't wear. Seems like putting an upgrade gold plating over it will eventually (a matter of months?) lead to a 2-toned pen that looks cheap, with the high touch areas all ti, and the rest gold. Before you get to that point though, you have blotchy finish, that really looks like crap.


----------



## PenMan1 (Jun 30, 2012)

The TN on the Roman Harvest is NOT durable. In fact, it doesn't hold up as well as regular 10k. I've had customers "friction" post Roman Harvest standing at my exhibit. Each time, the posting left a ring in the plating that couldn't be removed. Just a simple "quick" test by the customer ruined the plating.  NOT ONCE, but EVERYTIME. 

I immediately removed the Romans from my inventory and went back to the new style Cambridge. The "Rhodium" model seems to be ok, at least I haven't gotten any of those back.


----------



## nativewooder (Jun 30, 2012)

I do not like 24kt gold in any kit, but in some cases that is all I can get.  I also know that there are differences in Gold Ti plating among different makers.  The Gold Ti on my saltwater fly rod guides show no effects after 10-15 years.  I am upset to find out that what I ordered from Timberbits is not what I wanted.


----------



## Twissy (Jul 1, 2012)

David, I appreciate the honesty!
My personal opinion is that I would rather not have the upgrade gold top coat as this seems to be even less durable than the 24K plating on cheaper pens.
On a pen in this price bracket I would expect a more durable finish as reliability/consistency is a major factor when selling pens. But that's just my 40 cents worth:biggrin:
Regards
John


----------



## Chatham PenWorks (Jul 1, 2012)

Twissy said:


> On a pen in this price bracket I would expect a more durable finish as reliability/consistency is a major factor when selling pens. But that's just my 40 cents worth:biggrin:
> Regards
> John



Exactly. Because of the show types I've been doing, I've been focusing on the lower priced items in my inventory. Now that it's about time to start working on the upper tier items, it appears that I have a few hundred dollars in RH gold ti components that I can't sell. :frown: I won't sell a slim that i suspect will turn, much less a premium pen.


----------



## Chatham PenWorks (Jul 1, 2012)

nativewooder said:


> am upset to find out that what I ordered from Timberbits is not what I wanted.



Like so many others, I avoid real gold plating like the plague. it's more than upsetting to find out that these ti components are essentially upgrade gold. :redface:


----------



## Smitty37 (Jul 1, 2012)

*Not uncommon*

There is at least one other well known company that talks about a similar process on their gold kits.  It is not difficult to do - I don't do it because adding 30 or 40 cents to the cost of low end kits has a big impact on the bottom line - I believe they call it "sputter" plating and it is similar to what jewelers do with rhodium over platinum jewelery the coating is so thin that it wears off very quickly making the item look brighter in the store.


----------



## bitshird (Jul 1, 2012)

Smitty Rhodium we used was electroplated, and done over white gold, so it would look white, and Rhodium is a very durable plating, just a few microns will last a long long time.
But Back to the OP 
I'd rather not have 24 kt gold over my TI why bother .


----------



## Smitty37 (Jul 1, 2012)

bitshird said:


> Smitty Rhodium we used was electroplated, and done over white gold, so it would look white, and Rhodium is a very durable plating, just a few microns will last a long long time.
> But Back to the OP
> I'd rather not have 24 kt gold over my TI why bother .


Some did it that way - others in lasted until you got home --- maybe.


----------



## Rifleman1776 (Jul 2, 2012)

Is the Roman Harvest a PSI kit?
Personally, I very rarely use PSI kits because of quality issues, especially plating. I like the company and buy other stuff but only 1 - 2 pen kits a year.
For gold I use Ti exclusively.


----------



## Smitty37 (Jul 2, 2012)

bitshird said:


> Smitty Rhodium we used was electroplated, and done over white gold, so it would look white, and Rhodium is a very durable plating, just a few microns will last a long long time.
> But Back to the OP
> I'd rather not have 24 kt gold over my TI why bother .


 That is/was a common method White Gold has a yellowish tinge when nickel (which used to be common) was used in the alloy.  Today, due to allergies, I think nickel is not allowed in the alloy by the USA and often palladium is used instead.  The result is that the yelloish tinge is no longer a problem.  

It was not uncommon for the rhodium to be flash plated so thin that it hardly lasted until you got home, jewelry prone to even modest wear, particularily rings had to be replated as often as every few months to keep their appearance.


----------



## Smitty37 (Jul 2, 2012)

Rifleman1776 said:


> Is the Roman Harvest a PSI kit?
> Personally, I very rarely use PSI kits because of quality issues, especially plating. I like the company and buy other stuff but only 1 - 2 pen kits a year.
> For gold I use Ti exclusively.


 No it isn't


----------



## crabcreekind (Jul 2, 2012)

Smitty37 said:


> Rifleman1776 said:
> 
> 
> > Is the Roman Harvest a PSI kit?
> ...



It is sold by timberbits.com


----------



## crabcreekind (Jul 2, 2012)

I dont like the look of gold to begin with, so I try to avoid all gold kits. My rhodium RH have held up well. And I really like the look of the gold on them. But then again they are accents. I think the double plating on accents is fine. After all dayacom plates there accents in 22kt gold. Which is not very good. But it works fine.


----------



## Fred (Jul 3, 2012)

I also have experienced the same difference in plating on a Roman Harvest pen. On the same kit the insert in the clip separated and there appeared to be an extremely small 'smear' of glue. I just lightly buffed the components and used Loctite to reattach the insert. It is now one of my personal pens.

From what others have stated I think maybe there is a definite QC problem. Otherwise I like the design of the Roman Harvest and will still make them from time to time if asked.


----------



## Chatham PenWorks (Jun 13, 2013)

It's been a while now, and I'm sure many of the gold ti roman harvests have been made in the last year. How have they held up for you all? Has the plating process been changed, or is it still gold over ti?


----------



## Quality Pen (Apr 8, 2014)

Chatham PenWorks said:


> It's been a while now, and I'm sure many of the gold ti roman harvests have been made in the last year. How have they held up for you all? Has the plating process been changed, or is it still gold over ti?


Interested in this as well!


----------



## rich gubbin (Apr 8, 2014)

Purely by chance, after Twissy told me this thread had reappeared, and again by chance i met the customer who bought this pen over a year ago. The results are in my opinion very good. The top layer of upgrade gold had completely worn off the nib section which was the only bit i didnt clean up, this now matches the other components. This pen is in use everyday and the owner uses on average 1 disposable cartridge a day, thats some writing. With a bit of ren wax and a wipe it looked as good as new, it still has the original nib in too and writes amazingly smooth.


----------



## Chatham PenWorks (Apr 8, 2014)

Thanks for the update.


----------

