Plating A Hemalurgic Spike

[Trusk'our he/him]

In Mistborn, Vin's Hemalurgic Earring is plated with silver, but that doesn't seem to effect it's performance. Does this mean that you could plate a Hemalurgic spike with a different metal, and it would still work fine? Would a Metalmind still be able to be tapped or filled if it was plated with a different metal type?

Maybe then Marsh could get a little fancy, and make all his spikes shiny and golden or silvery  

[Arsteel]

I'm not sure, maybe it only worked with silver as that doesn't have any properties in the metallic arts that we know of.