# Gold stuck in borax



## Dude4ever (May 27, 2012)

Darn. Something went wrong:




Can't get it out, and don't wanna, before someone give me a tip  It's like fused in glass.......... The cracks is from the self-cooling.
How do you guys clean the melting dish after melting with borax anyway?

Thanks in advance
Erik


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## NobleMetalWorks (May 27, 2012)

You need to season your melting dish first, by melting borax. After the first time you use your melting dish, it will never be clean ever again. :mrgreen: 

I am going to assume you didn't season your melting dish, just based on your pictures. If I am wrong please correct me. You can try a few things. First I would try re-melting it by adding borax. Slowly heat up the dish so you don't cause thermal shock and crack or break it. Once it's heated up, sprinkle borax over the inside surface. That way if you do loosen the gold up, it won't stick to the sides, and your melting dish will be seasoned over the rest of it. Then add small amounts of borax while playing heat across the bottom, until you have a little molten mass of borax that covers the area that has the gold. What you are attempting to do is bring the gold together into one mass. Once you have it in one mass you need to keep the heat on it until it has a nice uniform color, you don't want the gold mass to have any mottled look, it should be one glowing ball.

Then pour it out.

If this doesn't fix your problem, you might search the forum for instructions on how to melt other metals in your melting dish, to draw out the gold. If you are using the dish to melt gold only, I wouldn't melt any other metals in it.

Your other option is to season the dish really well, and continue to use it until it cracks, breaks, or is otherwise not usable. The gold will either stay, or be picked up by other melts. If it isn't, not to worry. When your dish is no longer usable break it up to a fine sand and process it as sweeps. Once I kill a melting dish, I throw it in my ball mill, and add the material to my sweeps. If you don't have a lot of material a glass mortar and pestle will also work once you break it up into small enough pieces to use one.

Scott


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## NobleMetalWorks (May 27, 2012)

It also looks like you might have been scrapping the bottom of the dish with a screwdriver or something. That will weaken the dish and cause crevices for gold to sit in. Gold is heavy and will try to migrate to the lowest point possible, and there collect. Not that it matters too much if you process your melting dishes for values, but not acceptable if you are assaying.

Scott


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## jimdoc (May 27, 2012)

Dude4ever,
What are you using for a torch? It looks to me like you aren't getting it hot enough.

Jim


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## Geo (May 27, 2012)

are you melting in the fire brick or the dish above it in the picture?

one thing i can tell you is, the gold has not melted. that looks like an incomplete melt. if that firebrick is rated above 1200 F , just melt it where it is, just like it is. the borax will melt before the gold does. as the gold melts, it will come together.


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## Dude4ever (May 28, 2012)

SBrown said:


> I am going to assume you didn't season your melting dish, just based on your pictures. If I am wrong please correct me. You can try a few things. First I would try re-melting it by adding borax. Slowly heat up the dish so you don't cause thermal shock and crack or break it. Once it's heated up, sprinkle borax over the inside surface. That way if you do loosen the gold up, it won't stick to the sides, and your melting dish will be seasoned over the rest of it. Then add small amounts of borax while playing heat across the bottom, until you have a little molten mass of borax that covers the area that has the gold. What you are attempting to do is bring the gold together into one mass. Once you have it in one mass you need to keep the heat on it until it has a nice uniform color, you don't want the gold mass to have any mottled look, it should be one glowing ball.



OK thanks for answers. The glass like substance with the cracks that the gold is fused into is in fact borax  I melted borax in the melting dish first, and then I had the gold in, and tried to melt it.



SBrown said:


> It also looks like you might have been scrapping the bottom of the dish with a screwdriver or something



No screwdriver was used 



Jim said:


> Dude4ever,
> What are you using for a torch? It looks to me like you aren't getting it hot enough.



I have been using a torch head attached to a butane gas bottle, cheap stuff, and I certainly think you are right.
BUT, do you think it is possible to modify the torch to have a thinner flame, that picks up additional speed?
Because when a gas travels through a thinner opening, shouldn't it go faster and warmer?



Geo said:


> are you melting in the fire brick or the dish above it in the picture?
> 
> one thing i can tell you is, the gold has not melted. that looks like an incomplete melt. if that firebrick is rated above 1200 F , just melt it where it is, just like it is. the borax will melt before the gold does. as the gold melts, it will come together.



I melted it in the white dish, it was bought from a "stone specialist" for melting gold/silver. I really think I don't get it hot enough with the current torch I'm using... wich is a temporary one before I can buy a cutting/welding torch.

So you suggest that when I just get to melt it all, it should come together and be separate from the borax?


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## glondor (May 28, 2012)

More heat is your answer. Once the gold melts, it will bead up. Roll the bead around a bit to gather any loose prills.


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## nifty fox (Dec 10, 2013)

Dude4ever said:


> Darn. Something went wrong:
> 
> 
> 
> ...





I had something like this happen to me today , I used a 3 inch melting dish in a fire brick furnace , I used too much borax and never seasoned my dish I had no idea you had to is there a link I can get with preparing the dish ?


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## moose7802 (Dec 10, 2013)

Go to lazersteves websites it's in his signature line. He has a video showing how to season a dish. 

Tyler


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## Palladium (Dec 10, 2013)

nifty fox said:


> I had something like this happen to me today , I used a 3 inch melting dish in a fire brick furnace , I used too much borax and never seasoned my dish I had no idea you had to is there a link I can get with preparing the dish ?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2YLSZ-kj0M


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## Smack (Dec 10, 2013)

I would reheat and use a little soda ash to thin the borax a bit making it easier for the gold to come together and it does look like you need more heat, try surrounding your dish with fire brick to make like a little oven.


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## artart47 (Dec 10, 2013)

Hi !
If you set the melting dish on a piece of insulation and then pack it against the outside of the dish you will have plenty of heat to melt two ounces using a map gas torch.
after I melt my gold and as soon as it cools enough to just become solid and the borax is still melted I just pick the gold button out with a pair of needle nosed pliers. you should be able to do the same after you push all your gold together into a single ball.
If there is borax stuck on the gold button, Geo gave me the tip to boil it in dilute sulfuric acid. Cleans all the borax off.
artart47


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## butcher (Dec 11, 2013)

In the top of the picture, I see what looks like a thin melting dish that is more like what I use to melt gold in.
It is thinner and absorbs less heat.
Not sure what torch your using, but it is either not hot enough, or you are loosing all the heat it can produce.
The thick dish pictured with borax would be a heat sink and if the torch, or furnace, could not produce enough heat, to heat the dish, as well as have enough heat left over to melt the gold, you may not get the gold to melt, the surroundings of the dish can also absorb heat from the melt.
Materials like your dish, or even what it sits on, or what surroundings the dish can absorb heat away from the melt, and transmit heat away from the gold, not leaving enough heat to be available to melt gold, this would not be a problem if the torch or furnace can provide enough heat to overcome what is absorbed and still provide the heat needed to melt the gold.
Looks like you need more heat.
A better dish.
A better torch.
Less heat being pulled away from the melt.
A little less borax.
Or something like that.


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## rickbb (Dec 11, 2013)

All of the above.

More heat, less borax. You only need a pinch or two to season the dish with after you get it red hot. Just enough to barely glaze the surface of the bowl. 

Get the gold white hot it should roll around like a bead of water on an oily surface.


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## Dude4ever (Feb 7, 2015)

It all worked out in the end, thank you for every input, it yielded 0,2g. :lol:
I did not have enough heat from the propane torch, or the dish were too much of a heat sink, I got 3 small beads of gold, but I plan melt it all into my next batch.


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