The Platinum Notebooks of William Hyde Wollaston

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cuchugold

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Early 19th century notes on platinum adventures of Tennant the chemist, Wollaston the doctor, and Johnson the smuggler. They made malleable platinum without melting, and kept the trade secret for more than 20 years!. Johnson's son became the founder of today's Johnson Matthey & Co!.

http://www.technology.matthey.com/article/22/3/100-106/
 

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I understand from Mr. Tennant
that [platinum] retorts have been made in Paris
of about 30 gallon capacity and weighing about
900 ounces at 15 shillings per ounce

I would love to find one of these at today's prices, :D
 
"Los Tres Amigos". :lol:

From reading that and other pieces here and there, I understand that Johnson tried to raise the price of the unrefined ore, and Wollaston got angry and tried to sidetrack him, going directly to the source in Jamaica. Of course the material had been smuggled into Jamaica from Colombia, a Spanish colony at the time, and the independence wars were just getting started, after Napoleon appointed an usurper to the spanish kingdom. Someone with a lot of connections managed to get the pieces of "Platina del Pinto" (considered a useless metal that could not be melted from its initial discovery!) from the spanish vaults sent to Paris, and the story continued from there... Cloak and dagger at the finest!. James Bond would be amused.
 
This one is not free... yet!.

Pure Intelligence: The Life of William Hyde Wollaston.

200 years ago this man worked extremely hard and smart to get rich and advance the art and craft. He personally hammered 2100 ingots of ~ 25 oz each out of powdered Platinum.

For the small refiner, hot forging an ingot, the Wollaston way, is still the best way to go to get a pure metal, unless you can get access to a vacuum induction furnace.

A giant craftsman, head and shoulders above his peers.

https://books.google.co.ve/books?id=GkF5CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=wollaston+method+for+platinum&source=bl&ots=ZJ0srcmOvS&sig=OP8JCNjhloBbUraD3nJasbr3olU&hl=es-419&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqquPMqMPXAhXLKyYKHQJNA2AQ6AEITTAE#v=onepage&q=wollaston%20method%20for%20platinum&f=false
 

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Another W freebie: "It goes like a dance...".

The periodic table by Mendeleeiv was published 40 years after W death, and it was half empty. Amazing what advances those early people accomplished with so little knowledge. The profit motive is always a good motivator, it seems.
 

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