What should I do next?

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Yes, you are exactly right. I am washing the borax out. I have never seen a color like this. It is a med chocolate brown color cloud. I will try and get a good pic of it to send you.
 
I tried to get some pictures for you to see, but the camera is broke. It appears to all be slowly settling and the best way to describe the color is like hot chocolate or coffee with creamer. It is settling also though. Using the big spot light I can see further down into the bucket now. I want to wait until morning and see what has transpired by then. That won't hurt anything will it? I was thinking the worst case scenario is I have to stir and settle the gold again. If it doesn't clear by settling and still is the hot coffee look by morning my guess is, and I am likely wrong since that seems to be my current trend, is that the borax is still suspended. Does that sound right to you?
 
Could you walk me through your method of refining. I want to be sure I am not missing anything. After looking at my buckets again today, I think I need to follow your council and go to a refinement.

I am still going to try and get some pics for you.

Thanks again. I really appreciate this. I am learning a lot.
 
Okay, I just checked the buckets and it is settling. The color is still a choc. brown but more transparent do to the settling. I decided to siphon the excess fluid off so I could see the bottom of the buckets. I did siphon the fluid which does contain the still suspended brown cloud into 2 other buckets so I can watch the progress of them. The two buckets that contain the settled mud are quite interesting. They both are covered with a fairly large quantity of very fine brown mud. Both seem to have the same amount in them and they look identical. I expect the two containing the siphoned fluid will settle out with more of the same brown mud as the first two. If it is gold, there is what would seem to be a lot in each one of the first two. Both are very fine mud.

Your thoughts?
 
Upedate,

I just checked the 2 pour off buckets. Recall I said they were not all settled yet so I kept the water and they are settling also. They have almost completely settled out and have the same brown mud accumulated on the bottom of the bucket. Both are doing it so now I am not sure what to make of it. I did manage to get a picture of the brown mud in the bottom of one of the original buckets.
 
In terms of refinement, I mean to take your brown mud (as dry as you can get it), and dissolve it in Aqua Regia, then precipitate the Gold using Sodium Metabisulfite or Copperas.

You cover you brown mud with concentrated HCl, heat that up to 75 degrees Celcius, start adding HNO3 in small increments (how small the increments need to be depends on how much stuff you have to dissolve) but probably about 0.5ml to start with is good. You should see a vigorous reaction after a few seconds, let the HNO3 exhaust itself, and repeat until everything that will dissolve is dissolved.

The idea is to use no more HNO3 than you need to, any excess HNO3 causes problems later on.

If you added too much HNO3, you will want to use Sulfamic acid to 'remove it' (by converting it to H2SO4)

Then you want to use the SMB to precipitate the Gold (1g per expected gram of gold roughly)

You want some Stannous Chloride to test solutions as you go.

If you start a thread and ask questions as you go, with accompanying pictures, we are happy to advise as you go.
 
Thank you very much for the instructions. It all makes perfect sense. I have only one question at this point. HNO3 is very hard to find in my area. I have looked for it without any success. The AR system I have used and had pretty good luck with uses sodium nitrate, in pryll form to disolve unwanted materials. I have had good luck with it so far. It calls for mixing 1/2 lb of it in 16 oz's of hot water. Stir until dissolved and added to the Ar solution for stripping gold off fingers and boards. It has worked pretty good for me so far. Your Thoughts? I do have some pics but have to upload them.

Thanks.
 
Mountain Man said:
Thank you very much for the instructions. It all makes perfect sense. I have only one question at this point. HNO3 is very hard to find in my area. I have looked for it without any success. The AR system I have used and had pretty good luck with uses sodium nitrate, in pryll form to disolve unwanted materials. I have had good luck with it so far. It calls for mixing 1/2 lb of it in 16 oz's of hot water. Stir until dissolved and added to the Ar solution for stripping gold off fingers and boards. It has worked pretty good for me so far. Your Thoughts? I do have some pics but have to upload them.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
If you let us know where you're located, someone could probably help you find nitric. I don't think you looked hard enough.
 
I would like to get some opinions on the best way to dry the gold powder before refining or melting? I can get it dry but it sticks to what ever kind of dish I use and is really tough to get it unstuck.

Thanks
 
There is a point in the drying process that as the gold powder is starting to dry, it will try to stick to the beaker or whatever you're using. So you have to keep an eye on it and try to keep it moving freely in the beaker as it passes this stage.
 
As the clean pure gold dries it will begin to clump, this is where it can stick to glass, the moisture will cling to the glass with surface tension.

As the gold begins to clump pick up the warm beaker, swing it from the rim in one hand, and bump the palm of your other hand ( at the bottom edge of the beaker) compacting the gold clump shoving out water, forming a ball, roll the ball to pick up more of the gold, bump the gold to remove moisture packing the ball, or balls, using the balls to clean the gold from the glass. You may have to keep the gold moving until the gold is fairly dry, returning the beaker to the warm hot plate as needed ( an electric coffee mug warmer and a 150 ml beaker works well).

The gold balls can hold moisture, so drying is important, the balls can be melted after being well dried, for those who may have trouble with melting the fine gold powder, the balls are not as easy to blow out of your melting dish with a wrongly handled torch.

The cleaner the gold and better the washing procedure, the easier this works
 
The purer the gold, the better the gold powder is rinsed, the cleaner the beaker, and the newer the beaker (no scratches), the less the gold will stick. I rarely dropped gold in a beaker because I had too much. I usually used a super clean white 5 gallon bucket. The gold, clean or not, always stuck to the bucket. I rinsed the bucket and then, while it was wet, I used a piece of new green Scotch-Brite, cut about 3/4" square, on the tip of my middle and index fingers, to scrub the gold off the plastic. Took about 30 sec. Then I rinsed it down with a squirt bottle into a beaker and then into a filter. The bucket almost always came out sparkling clean with no evidence of gold on the plastic, even in the scratches. Occasionally, I had to repeat it. Simple, quick, and efficient. My motto.

I never liked rinsing gold powder in a beaker, by rinsing/decanting, unless the gold is super pure, heavy, and it completely settles, with a crystal clear solution in, say, 30 seconds. Rinsing in a beaker is many times less efficient than in a filter and, especially for slow settling powder, it takes forever to really clean it up. Do the math. If the gold is quite pure and light colored, not much will stick to the paper. Harold liked rinsing in the beaker, but Harold's gold was super-pure, I would guess. It doesn't work as well when the gold is slightly off purity.
 

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