# Inquartation calculator



## Noxx (May 29, 2008)

Hello guys,
Here is a very user friendly spreadsheet to calculate the amount of silver needed if you are inquartating different karats.
I'm open to any comments.

Also, I'm looking for a software to convert my spreadsheets to html pages, I lost the last one I had...

Thanks


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## Scott2357 (May 29, 2008)

Have you tried a google search for *convert excel to html free* ? Some are really free and some are not.


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## jaun (Jun 14, 2008)

I like your inquartation calculator, very nice!
Thanks


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## Noxx (Jun 15, 2008)

Your welcome.


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## 4metals (Apr 20, 2009)

Here is a spreadsheet I wrote to inquart karat lots from assayed karat bars in inventory with assayed silver bars (we use mostly sterling)

Enter the weights and assays of the gold you want to inquart, it sums the assays and calculates an inquart quantity. Then you add in the silver bar weights and assays until it tells you to stop. Our limiting factor is the 5000 ounce capacity of the melter but if you put your melt capacity in that space it will work for smaller capacities as well. It does refined metal accountability as well and acid cost, just put in your acid cost.


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## ck (Apr 20, 2009)

deleted


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## Refiner232121 (Jul 25, 2009)

Hi Noxx
I would like to have this spreadsheet to calculater
If it is possible please post it on the forum 
Thanks

Silver inquartation.xls


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## Refiner232121 (Jul 25, 2009)

Hi 4metals 
I am trying to use your excel spreadsheet and its not working.
Its not very user friendly
Thanks


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## 4metals (Jul 25, 2009)

I've got 6 pretty large clients using it daily, no complaints, but we aim to please. What problems are you having or what don't you understand? Maybe I can tweak it just for your application.


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## PreciousMexpert (Jul 26, 2009)

Hi 4metals
This spreadsheet does nor seem user friendly.
Since the purpose is the find out how much silver to add to you assayed gold then i should not be more than that.
For example if you have 500 grams of 11karat gold how much silver do you add to inquart
Thanks


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## 4metals (Jul 26, 2009)

The spreadsheet is made for refining multiple assayed bars and combining them into single refining lots. Much larger lots than you mentioned. The sheet I posted is also unlocked so often users not familiar with Excel accidentally change formulas in cells and delete them for good. 

I have attached an Excel spreadsheet simply to do as you asked, the only cells you can add to are the grams of gold and the karat of the gold. It calculates the theoretical gold content of the karat you list and gives you the number of grams of fine silver (at least 99%) to have 3 times as much silver as gold.

If you need details on working the original sheet let me know and I'll go into detail for you. 

As I was doing this small Excel sheet I realized it would be easy to put together a sheet by inputting the weight of each piece you buy and its tested karat and at the end of the day or when you're ready to process it can total the gold, give you the karat, and even say how much silver to inquart. 

let me know if you want me to write a sheet to do this.


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## PreciousMexpert (Jul 26, 2009)

Hi 4metals
Thanks for that spreadsheet 
It is impresive


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## PreciousMexpert (Jul 26, 2009)

Hi 4metals






> As I was doing this small Excel sheet I realized it would be easy to put together a sheet by inputting the weight of each piece you buy and its tested karat and at the end of the day or when you're ready to process it can total the gold, give you the karat, and even say how much silver to inquart.
> 
> let me know if you want me to write a sheet to do this.



This would be fun to have

Also 


> If you need details on working the original sheet let me know and I'll go into detail for you.



This would also be good to know.
I think what this needs is a step by step tutorial
I don't mean that you should spend hours trying to prepare it
Just to make it more clear to people who are not good in math


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## 4metals (Jul 26, 2009)

This sheet will total each piece you buy, calculate the theoretical gold content per piece, and keep a running total of karat weight and fine gold content as well as silver required to inquart. The sheet is locked so it will only accept data in the cells colored yellow. That prevents you from deleting formulas. If you need to change formulas or add to it the sheet is not password protected so just click unprotect and edit it. 

I only added 50 lines for input, I hope that gets you past lunch-break!!!

It's an Excel 2003 spreadsheet.


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## PreciousMexpert (Jul 26, 2009)

Hi 4metals
You really are a pro.
Hopefully one day we will do business the two of us.
Thanks very much


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## golddie (Oct 31, 2010)

Hi Folks
I have noticed a difference in the result of 2 calculations where there should not be any.

----------------
http://www.midstatesrecycling.com/karat_kalc
40 grams of 14K
Estimated Pure Gold Content: 0.724 t/ozs OR 22.51892 Grams
Estimated Purity: 56.3 %
13.51 K------------------------I DONT KNOW WHAT THIS STANDS FOR
-----------------
4metals small lot inquarting
40 grams of 14K
Estimated Pure Gold Content: 23.33333 Grams
Estimated Purity: 58.3333 %

Can someone tell me who is right and who is wrong or am is it me thats doing something wrong


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## qst42know (Oct 31, 2010)

golddie said:


> Hi Folks
> I have noticed a difference in the result of 2 calculations where there should not be any.
> 
> ----------------
> ...



MidStates buying calculator downgrades the incoming purity of 14k material by 2% more than 4metals inquartation calculator. They presume any scrap marked 14k (14/24ths) is actually 13.51k (13.51/24ths). 

4metals calculator uses 14k as 13.99/24ths.


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## mlgdave (Mar 10, 2011)

the karat buys running total spreadhseet is no longer in existence. Can someone please email it to me?
As well does anyone have a spreadhseet to inquart UP? As in adding enough pure AU to karat scrap to go directly to AR? I wanna try this method with some placer of unknown assay, I will add more than enough pure to have silver below 8%. 

I will do a small batch of 54.93 grams of placer and report back (I will do the math long hand) but wonder if theres a spreadsheet that exists?

THANKS EVERYONE!

mlgdave


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## goldenchild (Mar 10, 2011)

mlgdave said:


> the karat buys running total spreadhseet is no longer in existence. Can someone please email it to me?
> As well does anyone have a spreadhseet to inquart UP? As in adding enough pure AU to karat scrap to go directly to AR? I wanna try this method with some placer of unknown assay, I will add more than enough pure to have silver below 8%.
> 
> I will do a small batch of 54.93 grams of placer and report back (I will do the math long hand) but wonder if theres a spreadsheet that exists?
> ...



Aaaah! I've brought this subject up before. If one has enough high karat gold on hand, they can actully use it to inquart their scrap instead of silver and then go strait to AR. Way to think outside the box. 8) 

You don't need a spread sheet though. Just calculate how much base metal and pure gold is in your scrap. 

Ex. 54.93 grams of 14k scrap has 32.02 grams of Au and 22.91of base metal. Since you want the base metal content to be under 8% divide the base metal by .07 = 327.29 Now subtract the original gold content from this number = 295.27. So you would need to inquart 295.27 grams of pure gold with your scrap in order to go straigt to AR. See why not many people do it this way ? :lol:


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## Barren Realms 007 (Mar 10, 2011)

I just use this spreadsheet.

View attachment ArtsInQuartation.xls


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## mlgdave (Mar 10, 2011)

Yes golden child I do see that And I am fortunate enough to be able to do that. I am basing my 54.93 grams of placer gold at 80 percent. Thanks for the input!

Mlgdave


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## goldenchild (Mar 10, 2011)

mlgdave said:


> Yes golden child I do see that And I am fortunate enough to be able to do that. I am basing my 54.93 grams of placer gold at 80 percent. Thanks for the input!
> 
> Mlgdave




Do you still want a spreadsheet then? I can whip one up for you if you'd like.


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## mlgdave (Mar 10, 2011)

well a spreadsheet would help, as I will likely use this method a lot. help me understand something that either im missing or im not understanding.
On page 135 of Hoke even though shes talking about dental wastes and iridium recovery she talks about inquarting UP using brass, zinc, copper etc etc to lower the silver to less than 10% before using an AR solution. Does this type of inquarting add difficulties or dragging down of unwanted metals when precipitating? 

I do have the gold to use, but if im thinking outside the box then why not use brass as she suggests?

mlgdave
ps..and THANKS for the offer to do a spreadsheet for me! Im not an excel guru


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## Harold_V (Mar 10, 2011)

mlgdave said:


> then why not use brass as she suggests?


Brass has the potential to contain lead----which should be avoided at all costs. You also risk using bronze, introducing tin. There is no greater nightmare for the refiner than to include tin when it isn't necessary. It makes filtration impossible. 

Financially, far less nitric is required to digest silver than other elements----so there's more than one reason to stick to silver for inquartation. 

Harold


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## goldenchild (Mar 10, 2011)

mlgdave said:


> well a spreadsheet would help, as I will likely use this method a lot. help me understand something that either im missing or im not understanding.
> On page 135 of Hoke even though shes talking about dental wastes and iridium recovery she talks about inquarting UP using brass, zinc, copper etc etc to lower the silver to less than 10% before using an AR solution. Does this type of inquarting add difficulties or dragging down of unwanted metals when precipitating?
> 
> I do have the gold to use, but if im thinking outside the box then why not use brass as she suggests?
> ...



I've never inquarted with anything other than Ag, (Cu and Au once or twice to experiment)and Harold will have much more knowledge about dental wastes, but this is what I can offer. If you inquart using brass, zinc or copper you might as well just digest it with nitric to recover gold sponge. Zinc is highly susceptible to nitric and even straight HCL.

Usually its more trouble going straight to AR than it's worth. This is because if the base metal isnt digested 100% then the gold will cement out. Can you imagine inqurting with zinc? Copper, silver and gold will all be cementing out at the same time. Only until the zinc and copper portion of the alloy is completly digested will the cementing stop. And then you will be left with silver chloride to contend with. Besides that copper, zinc and bronze are all worth good money and better saved to sell as scrap. Back then these metels weren't worth much. Unless you plan on recovering zinc and copper silver is best to use. Or in your case AR


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## mlgdave (Mar 10, 2011)

Thanks guys, I will stick to inquarting up with AU, I love all that im learning and I just love the fizzy little bubbles AR produces on nice clean gold. 

Yes a spreadsheet would be great as I said before, I appreciate the heck out of it. I am seemingly now doing a batch every 2 or 3 days

mlgdave


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## samuel-a (Mar 10, 2011)

Dave

Here is an Inquarting Calculator for you to use whenever you need it:

Gold Inquarting Calculator

I've checked the results time and again and the script is OK, I work with this calculator when need to inquart scrap gold, i suggest you bookmark it :idea:


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## goldenchild (Mar 11, 2011)

Here is the one I promised. Let me know if anyone wants anything else added.

View attachment gcCalculator.xlsx


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## mlgdave (Mar 11, 2011)

Thanks Goldenchild, I will try a 111.40 gram batch this morning, I think its about 85% pure Au, and since its placer I am sure that the impurities are Fe, Cu, Ag, and maybe some Pt. I am calculating base metals % to 0.09 I am calculating that I will need 293.33 gram of pure Au (If I understand correctly this spreadsheet I get to take 111.40/.85 to give me 94.69 grams which means I will add 199 and change.............
I will report back in about 2 or 3 hours, im gonna go melt/shot and put in AR!

Thanks!

mlgdave


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## goldenchild (Mar 11, 2011)

The formula I used to calculate the Au inquartation was off. I realized it when playing with the spreadsheet a bit today. Here is the revised version. Now the percentages should both be input in the .07 format. "Pure Au in grams" means how many grams of pure Au you will have to add to your starting scrap weight. Just to be safe can someone double check my excel formula?

=IF(AND(C11<>0,C12<>0,C13<>0),((C11-(C11*C12))/C13)-C11,"")

mlgdave. To make your 111.4 grams of 85% pure scrap have a base metal value of 9% you only had to add 74.27 grams of pure Au. Sorry about that. And sorry to anyone else this messed up. Attached is version 2.

View attachment gcCalculator.xlsx


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## mlgdave (Mar 11, 2011)

ahh no big deal, it looked good adding the 197.13 grams! lol, the AGcl in the bottom is super snow wite and fluffly looking, I probably have about 30 mins left. Heres the piks so far! 


















I am so so so so addicted to this new hobby of mine (well I guess its not a hobby anymore) im still having a hard time laying down at 1030 pm to go to bed, its an expansion of my part in the gold business, I never thought i would EVER melt placer of ANY size....lol, i am NOW converted!

mlgdave


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## goldenchild (Mar 11, 2011)

mlgdave said:


> I am so so so so addicted to this new hobby of mine (well I guess its not a hobby anymore) im still having a hard time laying down at 1030 pm to go to bed, its an expansion of my part in the gold business, I never thought i would EVER melt placer of ANY size....lol, i am NOW converted!
> 
> mlgdave



Once you drop your first bit of gold your'e addicted for life.


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## mlgdave (Mar 11, 2011)

uh, yea, im starting to get that...........lol, I was actually BIT when I was 11, also wrote that story somewhere, ill have to find it, it was published in the ICMJ about 7 years ago

mlgdave


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## 4metals (Mar 11, 2011)

I found the spreadsheet which disappeared. It totals karat scrap as you buy it and gives running inquartation totals. View attachment karat buy running totals.xls


I also found this one, if you put the gold price in, it tells you how much it is worth per pennyweight, and if you follow along the red row to the price you want to pay it tells you what you will profit. Great quick reference if you have to haggle to get some scrap.
View attachment scrap jewelry buying margins.xls


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## Harold_V (Mar 11, 2011)

mlgdave said:


> im gonna go melt/shot and put in AR!


Better stop and read Hoke first. You have things a little screwed up.

Harold


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## mlgdave (Mar 12, 2011)

Harold_V said:


> mlgdave said:
> 
> 
> > im gonna go melt/shot and put in AR!
> ...


Ok, now you have me scared, Hoke is where I got the idea to begin with (or so i think?) Page 135 she talks about if you have gold with silver up to 12% to melt UP with another metal to get silver to less than 10%.........I did that, it digested in AR beautifully, its nice red color and I will treat with sulphuric to get rid of Pb and then dilute and precip............or do you still say I need to read Hoke?

mlgdave


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## nickvc (Mar 12, 2011)

I think Harold is viewing this as an inquartation process which is usually the method advised to obtain high quality gold with the added advantage that any PGMs are dissolved in nitric and cemented out with the silver but with some gold alloys direct dissolution in AR is possible and speeds the processing. If your dealing with scraps containing white gold or any PGMs I'd be tempted to stick to adding silver to reduce the gold content to around 20% and then dissolving in nitric, the cemented silver can be used many times over helping to increase the amount of PGMs which can then be recovered through a silver cell. If your going to follow the AR direct route always add copper after dropping your gold to cement any PGMs present.


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## mlgdave (Mar 12, 2011)

thanks Nick, now im not so scared, I will do that and I just did this to see how it went, I do have a lot of recovered silver from my first 5 batches and have some Karat scrap to do, so I will do just that!

mlgdave


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## Harold_V (Mar 12, 2011)

mlgdave said:


> Ok, now you have me scared, Hoke is where I got the idea to begin with (or so i think?) Page 135 she talks about if you have gold with silver up to 12% to melt UP with another metal to get silver to less than 10%.........I did that, it digested in AR beautifully, its nice red color and I will treat with sulphuric to get rid of Pb and then dilute and precip............or do you still say I need to read Hoke?


<<chuckle!>>

Ok, I see where you're going with this one. There's two approaches, and inquartation tends to apply to the one I had in mind (quartering, or lowering gold content to 25%) by adding other metals, then digesting in nitric *_before_* dissolving the values. That's the procedure I used (always) and preferred, for more than one reason. One of the good ones is that you remove base metals as well as most platinum and palladium in the process, leaving behind primarily high quality gold with just traces of silver, copper, zinc and pt. metals (assuming they are present). 

I'm a little surprised at the resulting color of your solution (although I suspect the picture, above, is not from this lot of refining)----which should have a green tint, assuming you didn't do the preliminary nitric process. Is there something I missed? That was my concern at the outset--that you talked about melting, shotting and going straight to AR. 

Harold


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## nickvc (Mar 12, 2011)

Oz put up a post about how he uses silver to collect and concentrate any PGMs he encounters in his refining and uses the colour of the cemented silver to judge when it's time to put it through a cell. If your going to refine as part of your living every cent counts and recovering any PGMs you encounter may well prove well worth the effort in time. If you have rings with platinum heads I would suggest cutting them off them and keeping them until you have a reasonable quantity and add them to the PGMs you get from your cell.


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## goldenchild (Mar 12, 2011)

Harold_V said:


> I'm a little surprised at the resulting color of your solution (although I suspect the picture, above, is not from this lot of refining)----which should have a green tint, assuming you didn't do the preliminary nitric process. Is there something I missed? That was my concern at the outset--that you talked about melting, shotting and going straight to AR.
> 
> Harold



Harold, 

mlgdave is starting with 80-85% pure gold and inqurted it with pure gold in order to make the base metal content 9% instead of 15%. Thanks to my miscalculation  he added way more Au than necessary so going to AR worked quite well. He said Pt may have been present in the scrap so a copper pipe or buss bar is in order.

Just a thought. Should all these spreadsheets be combined? This way there is an all in one calculator. I locked mine but can make all the formulas available. Just a thought.


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## mlgdave (Mar 12, 2011)

Harold_V said:


> mlgdave said:
> 
> 
> > Ok, now you have me scared, Hoke is where I got the idea to begin with (or so i think?) Page 135 she talks about if you have gold with silver up to 12% to melt UP with another metal to get silver to less than 10%.........I did that, it digested in AR beautifully, its nice red color and I will treat with sulphuric to get rid of Pb and then dilute and precip............or do you still say I need to read Hoke?
> ...



hey Harold I did not do nitric digest and this wasnt karat scrap, this was fine placer gold #14 screen and smaller of a suspected puirty to be 85% or so. There is no green because there was likley very little copper, this gold was from arizona mostly

I melted it Up with pure AU to get the silver to less than 10%, I will be filtering and dropping today, the stuff I put in AR was likley about 95% Au and the rest silver and traces of CU and PT 

mlgdave


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## Harold_V (Mar 12, 2011)

I slowly came to realize that's what you'd done. It's not inquarting (quartering), which is what had me concerned, because I take the term literally. 

I hope readers now understand what you did, and why. You did good!

Harold


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## mlgdave (Mar 12, 2011)

dropped it this morning, letting it settle now so i can wash filter and melt! Will post results by 7pm tonight

mlgdave


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## stihl88 (Mar 12, 2011)

Could you call it Unquarting :mrgreen:


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## mlgdave (Mar 12, 2011)

maybe gnitrauqni? Im just drying the powder, its a nice pile!

mlgdave


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## goldenchild (Mar 12, 2011)

Or outquarting.


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## mlgdave (Mar 12, 2011)

I am going to pour my bar tomorrow, and keep you guys in suspense overnight. (im pretty presumptuous with this statement arent I?)
Poker night for me, wife went to a slumber party.

the beaker has just over 100 ml in a 1000ml beaker, i figure about 9.5 ounces or so............

mlgdave
ps.......I SHUDDER when i handle the pregnant AR, both hands, very careful and still just shudder when i move it


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## mlgdave (Mar 13, 2011)

ok, the batch is done, i didnt know the purity of the placer but it returned 81% of its weight in AU. I have tested all solutions and they are negative for AU or PT, I do have some whitish grey sludge that I will read HOKE and see what to do with it. I know some will be Ag for sure and who knows what else. I have about 6 beakers of "sludge' i have to process now and about 40 ounces of silver in solution, i have most of it converted to AgCl now and will go to elemental today. Not sure if im going to use the lye method or sulphuric/aluminum.











I love my first button! 25.41 grams. The total batch is 9 OZT and change.

mlgdave


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## BusinessMan (Apr 16, 2011)

I have downloaded some of the programs for inquartation of metals from karat gold to 6K but I am looking for a formula to do this without a program and without a computer 
If anyone has a formula I would like to have this.
1) one for reducing from karat gold to 6K
2) another one to find out the pure gold content of karat gold (example how much pure gold in 14K)
Thanks


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## Barren Realms 007 (Apr 16, 2011)

BusinessMan said:


> I have downloaded some of the programs for inquartation of metals from karat gold to 6K but I am looking for a formula to do this without a program and without a computer
> If anyone has a formula I would like to have this.
> 1) one for reducing from karat gold to 6K
> 2) another one to find out the pure gold content of karat gold (example how much pure gold in 14K)
> Thanks



There is not an all inclusive formula to calculate these figures because each karat will have a different percentage of metals. If you haven't downloaded this calculator use this one and you can figue out the percentages for each karat type and write down the formulas for you to use.

View attachment ArtsInQuartation.xls


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## Claudie (Apr 16, 2011)

mlgdave said:


> ok, the batch is done, i didnt know the purity of the placer but it returned 81% of its weight in AU. I have tested all solutions and they are negative for AU or PT, I do have some whitish grey sludge that I will read HOKE and see what to do with it. I know some will be Ag for sure and who knows what else. I have about 6 beakers of "sludge' i have to process now and about 40 ounces of silver in solution, i have most of it converted to AgCl now and will go to elemental today. Not sure if im going to use the lye method or sulphuric/aluminum.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Very nice looking lot of gold you have there Dave. :lol:


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## Refiner232121 (Aug 2, 2011)

Barren has posted this 


> ArtsInQuartation.xls
> (22 KiB) Downloaded 6 times



Am I making a mistake or is there something wrong with this formula 
I have entered 
beggining gold bar weight 20
kt of gold 12
it says amount of AG to add is 20
---------------------------
This is from excell 4metals posted
grams 20
karat 12
AG required 30 grams


Why is Barrens ecell saying add 20 grams of silver
and 4metals is saying add 30 grams

Can someone fix this
thanks


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## Noxx (Aug 2, 2011)

You need to get gold down in the 20%-30% range.

It's not critical as long as it's not lower than 10%...


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## 4metals (Aug 2, 2011)

classically the term inquart means to make in quarters. 20 grams of 12 karat gold will have 10 grams of gold in it, to inquart it classically, 1 part of gold to 3 parts silver it requires 30 grams. 

Since the other 50% of the metal in the alloy is not gold, it can technically be added in the silver column (as it will usually part in nitric) and only require an additional 20 grams of silver.

Both will work with karat gold.


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