Material
PVD vs Gold Plating: Why One Lasts and One Rubs Off
Almost every gold-coloured piece that is not solid gold gets called "gold plated", and that phrase covers two processes with almost nothing in common except the colour they produce.
One of them is why cheap jewelry goes patchy at the edges in a month. The other is what aerospace and watch cases use.
Electroplating, the default
Standard gold plating is electroplating: the piece is submerged in a solution containing gold ions and an electric current deposits a layer onto it. It is fast, cheap, and the layer it produces is typically 0.5 microns or less — around a hundredth of the thickness of a sheet of paper.
The layer sits on top of the base metal as a separate coat. Anywhere the piece rubs — the inside of a ring, the back of a pendant, the clasp of a chain — that coat wears through first, and what appears underneath is whatever the piece is actually made of. Usually brass.
PVD, the other one
PVD stands for physical vapour deposition. The piece goes into a vacuum chamber, a gold target is vaporised into plasma, and the vapour is driven into the surface of the base metal at a molecular level. That is the part that matters: it does not sit on the surface, it becomes part of it.
The layer is also far thicker — typically 1 to 3 microns rather than a fraction of one — and it is deposited at high energy, which gives it a hardness electroplating cannot reach. This is why PVD is used on drill bits, watch cases and surgical tools, none of which are places you can afford a coating to flake.
What "18k gold PVD" means
The karat figure describes the gold alloy being vaporised, exactly as it would on a solid piece: 18k is 75% gold. It is not a claim about how much gold is on the finished item, and no plating figure ever is.
What makes the phrase meaningful is the pairing. 18k gold PVD on 316L steel means a hard, bonded gold layer over a base that would not corrode or turn your skin green even if you wore through it. 18k gold PVD on brass is a better coating over a base that is still brass. The coating is only ever half the answer.
Does PVD wear off?
Eventually, on any coating, under enough abrasion. The honest difference is the timescale and the failure mode: electroplating fails in weeks to months and fails visibly, in patches at the contact points; PVD on steel is measured in years and thins gradually rather than flaking.
The practical consequence is what happens when it does. On brass, wear exposes a reactive metal and the piece starts marking skin. On steel, wear exposes steel — a slightly different colour and nothing else.
FAQ
What is the difference between PVD and gold plating?+
Electroplating deposits a gold layer onto a surface using an electric current in solution — typically under 0.5 microns, sitting on top as a separate coat. PVD vaporises gold in a vacuum and drives it into the surface at a molecular level, 1 to 3 microns thick and far harder. One is a coat; the other is bonded.
Is 18k gold PVD real gold?+
The gold being deposited is a real 18k alloy — 75% gold. But the karat describes the alloy, not how much of it is on the piece, which is true of every plating figure. What matters as much is the base underneath it.
How long does PVD gold plating last?+
Years rather than months under everyday wear, and it thins gradually instead of flaking in patches. The thickness (1 to 3 microns against under 0.5) and the molecular bonding are what account for the difference.
Is vacuum plated gold the same as PVD?+
Yes — "vacuum plated" is the plain description of what physical vapour deposition does. Vacuum plating, vacuum ion plating and PVD all refer to the same family of process.
Ask two questions, not one: what is the coating, and what is under it. The second is the one that shows up eventually.