zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

I thought regulars here would find this amusing, so no need to debate this to death, just thought I'd share. I've been considering buying a Deville Coaxial for a while, and bugging poor Omega with all kinds of kooky questions.
You see my Aunt is a Jewelry designer, so she knows all about metal treatments. She explained to me how the kind of protective rhodium plating advertised on the Deville's usually has an undercoat of Palladium to seal the metal before electro-plating. She told me Nickel is used in sealing larger pieces like silver dinnerware as Palladium is prohibitively expensive on everything but jewelry and watches.
Well, guess what, not only does Omega use the minimum amount of rhodium in their plating, but it's undercoated with crap!
In addition, by not rhodium plating the metal wrist band or bezel is just plain false advertising by most Omega dealer/resellers who do not specify that this protection is limited to the movement. I mean, if you were buying a product that advertised special plating to protect against corrosion and scratches, wouldn't you expect it to be on the metal band and bezel, not just the movement INSIDE the watch? It's a $10,000 Gold watch already featuring 30m water resistance sealed case; why the hell would I care if the movement is plated... *sigh*

I just thought it would be fun for us Omega worshipers to bring them down a peg or two...

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(Spys wrote)

Hi, please tell me how thick is the rhodium plating on your Deville's that feature it.

(The recommended thickness for the rhodium finish should be 0.25 through 1.00 microns)

also, was the base metal of the Deville treated with a Palladium seal before the rhodium was electroplated on?

finally, is the rhodium plating on the bezel only, or is it also on the watchband of any Gold or Steel band models?

I suggest you add "rhodium-plated finish" to your web site Glossary.

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(Omega Wrote)

We do not use rhodium plating on the platine, bridges and other components of the movement. Indeed, no movement component gets a rhodium treatment.

On the movement, there is a under covering at about 2 microns of nickel and right after we add a final rhodium treatment of 0.2 microns on top of this one.

The under covering of nickel warranties and protects against corrosion and the rhodium treatment gives the finishing and the stability of the movement.

We do not use any palladium treatment (he means under the rhodium, palladium instead of nickel) on the movement the bracelet or on the case. The stainless steel or gold bracelet are massive and do not get any additional treatment.