Gold Processing

[Phoenix76]

G'day Marksman

By the way, I like that 7.62 on your Avitar

Mate, I do know how to do what you are looking at. But I will not tell you how to do it. Why do I take this stand? Well mate, I do not want to be responsible for your injuries, or death.

Marksman, you mentioned reading some online things about refining electronic gold. Well mate, there is precious little difference between that and what I believe you are trying to do - smelt or melt down gold you have found in your prospecting trips.

Yes I have a recipe for refining gold that you might collect, but it includes chemicals such as nitric acid. That stuff is lethal if handled incorrectly. The following picture shows the type of gases given off in this process.

Marksman, all that dirty brown gas stuff will kill you if you breath it in. And mate, I am not giving you ********.

Man, leave it alone. Gold is worth about $1600 an ounce. If you have samples or little nuggets you can get a good price for them without going through all this risky ****. Sorry mate, but I will not disclose how to do what you want to do. Just be thankful you have found some gold, don't kill yourself trying to make a couple of extra dollars - not worth it.

Cheers
Bill

 

[7.62marksman]

Thanks mate for the truth and my mate down here offered me all the acids today but as i said to him i have enough problems staying alive now without playing with that stuff and your pictures just made that even more so
my idea was to use heat and borax or something like that to get the best i could
my intentions are not to sell any just put it away for a rainy day and its easier to put a bar away then flakes or nuggets

 

[bazza2210]

I should have mentioned this before but I use Silicon dioxide crucibles , anhydrous borax and a oxy/mapp gas set

Only takes about a minute to melt 10 Grams alluvial gold

Cheers

Barry

 

[7.62marksman]

Hi Barry
got much the same thing from bunnings about a month ago only used it once and it did seen to work well
you will have to show me the Silicon dioxide crucibles (went right over my head that one) are they the round cup like things if so i got two from china funny story to that the first time we used one we used the gas axe as our heat source needless to say i now only have one lol

 

[bazza2210]

These are the crucibles, fused quartz I should have said - same as silicon dioxide I read somewhere once

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Fre..._6&btsid=d838c829-48e7-4f04-ac99-9a1312d5c5f5

 

[7.62marksman]

yep they are the ones i got well one only now

 

[Moneybox]

Great topic 7.62marksman.

It's good to see I'm not alone in the battle to process gold. Here's the post I put up and received a lot of good advice.

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16450

Simmo advised me to drop my copper coloured gold in jewellers pickle. It worked instantly coming out a beautiful shiny gold with all the copper colour gone. I couldn't get my gold hot enough with LPG even when I had air fed from the compressor. It looked mighty hot and made an awful lot of noise but even though it melted it wouldn't pour properly. I ended up using oxy/acetylene to finish the job. I came to the conclusion that I needed that electric furnace

I'm looking forward to seeing your results.

 

[7.62marksman]

Read yours and thats how mine turned out and in the end it was worked out that the borax was contaminated so that one will be the first one i run through the furnace tomorrow it looks very much the same as yours the middle one of the three but my mates looks like the one on the right hand side if mine works out i will do the same to his and see what happens
If it all works out do you want me to send you some of the borax and soda ash i have just in caee yours is contaminated

 

[7.62marksman]

One last question what is jewellers pickle

 

[Moneybox]

One last question what is jewellers pickle

I just used white vinegar and salt that we collected from a salt lake (it's the only salt we have in the house).
I just happen to be a long way west so you better not post anything over here but I appreciate the offer. Let's see how you go. I might change my mind yet

http://www.natashalh.com/tutorial-thursday-recipe-to-make-your-own-natural-jewelers-pickle/

 

[7.62marksman]

Just found how to make that pickle so will try tomorrow but i will do a melt and let you know how it went

 

[Simmo]

You can buy pickle from a pool shop. (Thats where I got mine) (its also the stuff they inject crown of thorns starfish with....)

 

[7.62marksman]

hi all well the big kid just fired up the furnace been on for 20 min now (i think the lights went into a brown out and the tv switched off lol)
i have got a lot of good advise from everyone so lets put it to good use
ok ok tell the truth dropped the crucible on the ground
yes i had to look inside the furnace and of cause the bark chips caught on fire the dog ran away and left me to it and my partner so helpfully informed me that they were on fire must have been the beating on the ground trying to put it out that gave it away couldn't have been all the smoke.
anyway got the crucible back in (bugger they get hot ahhhhh that's why it came with gloves) Borax mix in gold in lid closed (about time)
time to have coffee (only two burnt fingers and some bark chips gone overall not a bad start.) ice water for fingers and a coffee (bugger that hurts)
So what did we learn from this
1. I'm an idiot (na i already knew that been told a fair bit at the moment)

 

[B5MECH]

I'm no pro yet but your flux shouldn't be straight borax, I can't find a link for the page I had but borax, soda ash, flurospa, silica, maganese, etc
It should be mixed depending if it has black sand as borax is too thick and doesn't like to pour
here's a buy it made flux for black sand
http://www.makeyourowngoldbars.com/...e-gold-silver-recovery-jewlery-smelting-assay
If your still keen on making your own flux read up on fluxes and their properies
https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/gold-smelting-refining-process
skip to the flux part explains more

 

[7.62marksman]

very interesting read my bigest problem is if i read it then i must print it so i can read it again later and it gives me some quick referance material
sorry but earlier in this saga i said i am mixing 3-1 borax anhydrous and soda ash as per advise from the assay office so when i say borax that's what i mean
sorry i should not take short cuts and type everything

 

[B5MECH]

I understand you want to stick to heir advise, is there to stop people contaminating gold that needs special refinement,.
When I played with the soda ash thing it caused problems
Pretty much the borax is there only to coat the crucible to stop sticking and the soda ash thins it, In a refinery they add other things to eat up the sand and iron as borax isn't enough
I believe you would be better with flurospa to thin the borax but I would still look into what other to add for the black sand
I don't believe the assay testers would know what borax you used, I would believe they just gave you a can't eff it up recipe
Soda ash is harsh on crucible life too

 

[7.62marksman]

OK HERE WE GO
my first with the electric furnace
this is the before photo

now one hour later this is the after

lesson learnt was the mold was no where near hot enough to do the pore into so next time will have to heat it a lot longer as i was advised to on here
i will be doing another later tonight so we will see what happens then but notice the color change (bad photos sorry never said i was a photographer)

 

[7.62marksman]

the assay testers knew what i was using as they sent me a few 100gms of borax anhydrous and soda ash with the instructions on what to do
but at the end of the day its fun to do (burns sometimes that's a bit of a bummer) and i only do this for fun and fresh air
i intend to design my own molds in lots of different shapes and sizes as soon as i get this poring down pat

 

[B5MECH]

Maybe still needs a little longer in there, the middle looks like it didn't flow enough
Nice job though, electric furnace works a treat

 

[7.62marksman]

yes i could do with a bit longer i agree just tested it it cane out as 18+kt at 2.99oz so it will for sure have to be in for longer
before i put it in it was 9+kt at 3.22oz (bugger shrank on me ) and looked like S*&$ must have still had a lot of crap in it (and as you can see i think it was copper tone)so the next one should sort that out i hope but even if it doesn't its been a lot of fun trying anyway and a lot of good advise and maybe someone reading this will even try it themselves because now it wont be hit and miss its all here in black and white so to speak
if i had not been lazy and read all the form's i would have found where this has come up before and saved me a lot of pain lol still it was fun
nothing gained nothing lost