# Cupolas and Foundry



## PGM-Au-Ag (Jul 20, 2011)

Will a Cupola built on the Stewart Marshall or Stephen Chastain model work for smelting Gold and Platinum from quartz ore with a neutral flux and a collector? If not what would be a better model of smelting for recovery of precious metals including PGMs from several hundred pounds of ore in a single burn? Thanks for any advice.


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## nickvc (Jul 20, 2011)

It might pay you to add a post onto Rick The Rockmans thread as his followers tend to be in the mining side of our hobby and we now have several knowledgeable members as regards that part of the forum.


Edited for spelling thanks predictive text!


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## Richard36 (Jul 20, 2011)

PGM-Au-Ag said:


> Will a Cupola built on the Stewart Marshall or Stephen Chastain model work for smelting Gold and Platinum from quartz ore with a neutral flux and a collector? If not what would be a better model of smelting for recovery of precious metals including PGMs from several hundred pounds of ore in a single burn? Thanks for any advice.



I'm not familiar with the model that you speak of, but I am familiar with the process.
Yes, it is absolutely possible to "Melt to Lead" as a way of recovering values from an ore, then follow up by cupeling off the lead to recover the PM's as a dore bead that can be further refined with the methods found on this forum.

Good question, with an abundance of merit.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## PGM-Au-Ag (Jul 20, 2011)

Thanks for the comments. If you'll know of a specific model that I can buy plans for which will work for smelting 500lbs+ of crushed Quartz ore at a time please give direction. I am looking at Cupola plans made for Iron melts right now. In addition, would copper work for a collector? I would like to avoid cupeling for two reasons. There is a ton or more of ore I wish to flux and smelt, second, the nickel in the button will take the precious metal values into the cupel.


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## Reno Chris (Jul 20, 2011)

1. For the scale and amounts you are proposing, you'll likely need environmental permits. Smelting is not something that is easy to permit. That's a big part of why such equipment is generally not available off the shelf.It must be custom designed.
2. Gold and platinum do not normally occur in significant amounts in the same ore. There are a few examples, but its very, very rare. Do you have reliable assays from a reliable company? Most assays I have seen with significant gold and PGM from the same ore were performed by shysters and frauds. If you do not have Gold or PGM in your ore, no treatment can extract what isn't there.


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## PGM-Au-Ag (Jul 20, 2011)

I have had an XRF analysis done by SoAccurate on a button from approx 1 lb of ore, which resulted in approx 2.1 g of a Pt and Pd. the majority being Pt. I do realize that is a phenomenal number. An ICP was also performed by ALS-Chemex, which showed the PGMs, Gold, Silver, Copper, Nickel and many other base metals. I live in a rural area so I think I can get by without permits at least long enough to smelt the ore I have being 1.5 tons. This material came from an area that has a concentration of mines dating back to the 1800's in the Southeast US within the Carolina Slate Belt. Do you think the home built Iron-smelting Cupolas with a 6" - 10" bore will work for this project?


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## Harold_V (Jul 21, 2011)

I'm of the opinion that it won't work. That would be particularly true if the ore is high in quartz. When such ore is smelted, they don't melt the quartz, it is dissolved with soda ash. That isn't likely to work in a cupola, and even if it does, the cupola lining it will be rapidly degraded by the flux you choose to use. You may be able to address that issue by selecting a refractory that lends itself well to the fluxes you'll use, but even then I'm not convinced the ore will be subjected to the fluid flux long enough to dissolve. Cupolas are designed around a continuous feed and tap process, so you don't have the option of loading and a prolonged soak like you'd have in a reverberatory furnace. 

I just re-read your post. Crushed ore isn't going to permit proper operation of the cupola. They rely on an air flow from the tuyeres to burn coke. That demands an open charge, one that permits air flow. If nothing else prevents success, that will. You would have been better served to try with solid pieces of ore, although that would have required an even longer soak period, something that you can't get from a cupola. 

Harold


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## Reno Chris (Jul 21, 2011)

Not really knowing anything about the nature of your ore (and the nature of the ore makes all the difference in the world), I would suggest that treatment to concentrate of the metal bearing parts of the ore and smelting of these concentrates rather than of the whole ore would be a hugely superior way to handle the material you have. This is how it is done commercially.

I'll say that I am still quite skeptical that the ore actually contains as much PGMs as you say, and that it has any significant gold. ALS -Chemex is well known and local here in Reno, but I am skeptical of the value of the Soaccurate assay of the bead submitted to them. 

Chris


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## Wyndham (Jul 21, 2011)

I live in the NC slate belt area and though I am not totally up on the amt of platinum in the different ores of the area, I don't recall hearing/reading of high %'s. I'm not saying it's not true and I may have missed it, but my reading does not support it. Please double check with another outfit before committing major $$$'s to the project.
This link deals with a book online that will give details of different mines in the NC slate belt.
http://www.farlang.com/diamonds/nitze-gold-mining/page_048

Hope this helps, Wyndham


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## cuchugold (Oct 29, 2017)

Richard36 said:


> PGM-Au-Ag said:
> 
> 
> > Will a Cupola built on the Stewart Marshall or Stephen Chastain model work for smelting Gold and Platinum from quartz ore with a neutral flux and a collector? If not what would be a better model of smelting for recovery of precious metals including PGMs from several hundred pounds of ore in a single burn? Thanks for any advice.
> ...


Would you please ellaborate Rick?.


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## snoman701 (Oct 29, 2017)

I thought lead was a pretty crappy collector of the pgm's. this is why a proper fire assay for pgm's doesn't use lead but nickel.

Was your icp consistent with xrf? I highly doubt it unless you had someone with really good standards by which to compare to. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## galenrog (Oct 29, 2017)

Cuchugold wrote 

“Would you please ellaborate Rick?”

Rick has not logged on since March, so please do not expect him to answer any time soon. If you really want him to receive your question, perhaps a PM would be in order.

Finally time for another coffee.


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## cuchugold (Oct 29, 2017)

galenrog said:


> Cuchugold wrote
> “Would you please ellaborate Rick?”Rick has not logged on since March, so please do not expect him to answer any time soon. If you really want him to receive your question, perhaps a PM would be in order.
> Finally time for another coffee.


I like your signature. Thanks.


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## FrugalRefiner (Oct 29, 2017)

He won't see a PM unless he logs onto the forum. An email might get a better response.

Dave


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## snoman701 (Oct 29, 2017)

cuchugold said:


> Richard36 said:
> 
> 
> > PGM-Au-Ag said:
> ...


If you wish to just see the process, there was a topic recently called "smelting 41 kgs of mlc's" or something like that where a member did just that. In this case it was smelted in a homemade cupel with silver as well as lotharge as a collector of the pgm's. 

I would post a link but I'm away from computer and Tapatalk is difficult.


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## cuchugold (Oct 29, 2017)

I'm interested in recovering gold from a quartz bearing ore in a modified cupola furnace. Without pure oxygen, if possible. 10 Tons at a time.


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## cuchugold (Nov 6, 2017)

I just saw Rick online. I hope he chimes in. Cheers. :G

Yesterday I saw a video in youtube of someone melting cement, steel, quartz, and more... with a plastic fresnel lens. No fuel!. Someone in this forum suggested that, but in other thread. I'd like to know if it is possible to melt in size using this (or other technique), a pre-selected high grade ore.

edit: Rick left.


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