# Karat gold and gold plated contact points.



## pimpneightez (Dec 29, 2016)

Just wondering if I can melt a 14 karat gold ring and gold plated contact points together instead of inquarting with pure silver. Figure I can kill two birds with one stone. What would the pros and cons be?


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Dec 29, 2016)

The pros are that if you already have both materials, you achieve inquartation of the karat gold and at the same time you'll be able to recover the gold from the pins.

The main con is that it will require more nitric to dissolve the copper based pins than if you inquarted with silver. 

Dave


----------



## g_axelsson (Dec 29, 2016)

That is a perfect way of recover the gold from the plated contact points.

All gold plated contact points from relays I've seen has been with fine silver under the gold.

Göran


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Dec 29, 2016)

Hmmm... Not sure why I read that as pins instead of contact points.  

I hate it when I have senior moments.  

Dave


----------



## pimpneightez (Dec 29, 2016)

Amsome thanks. I finally have enough material to start reclaiming. I'm in the sorting material phase and figured the contact points would be the easiest to start. I have been collecting material for a couple years now. I'll probably be posting more questions as normally I just lurk around trying to soak up information. The question I posted just seemed logical and an easier way to collect the gold plate than running them separately. I also thought the gold plating would keep the advise from putting the silver contact in to solution.


----------



## patnor1011 (Dec 30, 2016)

Some old soviet relay used solid gold on contact points. I do not remember now if it was 14 or 18 karat gold but it was one of the two.


----------



## upcyclist (Jan 9, 2017)

pimpneightez said:


> Just wondering if I can melt a 14 karat gold ring and gold plated contact points together instead of inquarting with pure silver. Figure I can kill two birds with one stone. What would the pros and cons be?


I do the exact same thing with any plated and gold filled material--I use that for inquarting first, then silver. It does use more acid, but until I get a cyanide bath going for plating, I'll stick with the "inquart with it" method.


----------



## finegold (Apr 8, 2017)

Oh I hate to ask, but this tread wont leave my head at moment, as it deals with a thought I had about karat gold, so here goes.
So, if karat gold is alloyed with silver and possibly copper, and in this instance more copper is added to the melt, and copper is used to cement silver, wouldn't the excess copper drop the silver in the nitric?
when I finally melt my foils, wires, etc . I plan on second refine anyhow, but I just cant seem to wrap my brain around mixing in extra copper, seems to contradict a lot ive read.
I have collected some amount of 14-18k rings I was going to process later in my education, but thought inquartation with ag was way to go, currently have 10 lbs of clipped pins.
At your mercy folks.

Glen


----------



## geedigity (Apr 8, 2017)

The idea is to dilute the gold in karat material to a low enough level that the base material can be dissolved directly by nitric acid. Yes, copper will cement out silver, but it you calculate out how much nitric acid you will need to dissolve the silver and copper, then there will be no copper for the silver to cement on. 

Since copper is higher on the reactivity series, it will be more reactive than silver and will generally get dissolved prior all of the silver getting dissolved.


----------



## nickvc (Apr 9, 2017)

There is good reason to use silver when inquarting karat scrap.
1. Silver has a good value so it's worth recovering.
2. Silver takes less nitric to dissolve than copper, nitric been either expensive or difficult to obtain for many.
3. Silver is a good carrier of PGMs making recovery via a cell easier.

The point about using pins to inquart is a good one but be careful what you use as not all pins are suitable and will cause more problems because of their makeup, also bear in mind you will use a lot more nitric to dissolve them than silver will.
Mixing products or materials needs careful consideration and good skills to be successful and in my opinion best avoided.


----------



## finegold (Apr 9, 2017)

I appreciate the response, Thank you. at this point I will continue my plan of inquarting with silver for my karat gold. perhaps when I feel I have firm grasp of reactivity series I may give it a go...for now, tried and true. thanks again


----------

