# Difference between magnetic gold filled and nonmagnetic



## croakersoaker (Mar 17, 2012)

Hey guys I have about a thousand grams of gold filled pretty evenly divided between magnetic and nonmagnetic gild filled scrap. The magnetic scrap is mostly caps and watchbands. Can somebody tell me the difference, do you process them the same. Can you run them together. I have steves video and have been reading alot but have not seen thus covered. I know there are some refiners that accept gold filled but not magnetic is it harder to process thanks


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## nickvc (Mar 18, 2012)

The good news is gold filled is one of the best sources of gold and reasonably easy to process, the bad news is your going to have to strip down your magnetic material and your 500 grams will shrink to around 200 at a guess. This stuff can be filthy if it's worn so make sure you clean it well then it's just a case of taking the caps off the steel springs, pliers or side cutters work but mind the springs they tend to get you very easily, hence the cleaning first ! The stripping is a pain but just do a few at a time or in future when you get them, the processes to recover and refine GF is well documented so it should be easy once you have it all stripped and ready to start.
Good luck and watch those damn springs.


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## croakersoaker (Mar 18, 2012)

Thanks and your not kidding about the funk inside the watchbands. Pretty disgusting and I got pricked by one of the tiny springs already. So there's no difference in processing the magnetic stuff. Just digest the base metals in nitric then Go to aqua Regia or hcl/cl?


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## nickvc (Mar 18, 2012)

The chances are that the springs are stainless so you need to strip them down as nitric won't touch the stainless but it will cause problems in AR, I don't think Chlorox will work as the foils may be too thick and are karat alloys but I might be wrong on that, check to see if anyone else has used it.


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## Geo (Mar 18, 2012)

hcl/Cl is not a good option. if you start with 400ml hcl (for example) by the time you dissolve twenty grams of GF you may have a gallon of solution.its very inefficient on solids bigger than powder or foils.


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## croakersoaker (Mar 18, 2012)

Oh sorry I was planning to first digest the base metals in nitric then do the muriatic and chlorox for the foils . Should I use nitric and muriatic instead, I think Steve uses muratic and chlorox in the video . I plan to watch it a few more times before I attempt it


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## Geo (Mar 18, 2012)

hcl/Cl is ok to use for foils. after the nitric process its always a good idea to heat the material to red hot and keep it there a few minutes to rid it of any acid residue. when you go from a nitric solution to a hcl solution or from a hcl solution to a nitric solution you should first incinerate the material or you will make an AR solution and could lose some of your values.


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## Harold_V (Mar 19, 2012)

nickvc said:


> The chances are that the springs are stainless so you need to strip them down as nitric won't touch the stainless but it will cause problems in AR, I don't think Chlorox will work as the foils may be too thick and are karat alloys but I might be wrong on that, check to see if anyone else has used it.


I agree fully. I used to strip the gold filled from watch bands, but soon realized it was not worth the time it took. In the end, I used a cyanide stripping cell, which would pull the gold, silver and copper, leaving behind the unwanted stainless. 

I do not recommend watch bands be processed in nitric unless the stainless has been eliminated. To do so is to risk losing a respectable percentage of the gold, which will be trapped in springs and other crevices, where it may not be removed without considerable difficulty. Digesting the stainless with AR is an option, but that's not a great way to go, either. 

Harold


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## croakersoaker (Mar 19, 2012)

All of the gold filled tops and pieces have already been removed from the bands but they are still attracted to a magnet is that ok?


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## nickvc (Mar 19, 2012)

Sounds like not all the springs have been removed, try a soak in hydrochloric it should loosen if not totally remove the springs. If you do this make sure you incinerate the heads to remove the acid before going onto the nitric to avoid creating AR and losing values.


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## croakersoaker (Mar 19, 2012)

I got all the springs off still magnetic, I might add that I am using a rare earth magnet and the little gold filled caps are definitely attracted


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## qst42know (Mar 19, 2012)

Either a magnetic grade of stainless (some flatware is magnetic) or the caps have been heavily cold worked. Cold worked stainless can be mildly magnetic.


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## Geo (Mar 19, 2012)

some .925 silver is magnetic according to one of our members. what ever the base metal used in it could be the same as in your gold filled.


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## Harold_V (Mar 20, 2012)

croakersoaker said:


> All of the gold filled tops and pieces have already been removed from the bands but they are still attracted to a magnet is that ok?


Most likely, yes. Try running a single piece in dilute nitric to see if it dissolves. I expect there's some nickel that's attracted to the magnet. If they dissolve in nitric, go for it!

Oh, yeah! Do the smart thing. Incinerate everything before you introduce acid. 

Harold


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## croakersoaker (Mar 20, 2012)

Thanks guy I will try it this weekend most likely


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## Lobby (Mar 29, 2012)

I've got a similar situation: new watch parts, gold filled, but with stainless steel parts.

I'd conceptualized using nitric to dissolve the base metals, then sulfuric to dissolve the stainless. Followed by traditional AR, etc.


Thoughts?


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## nickvc (Mar 29, 2012)

I'd try to strip as much as possible manually and if that becomes a pain try hydrochloric which should dissolve the stainless, a complete dissolution may not be necessary as when the springs lose their tensile strength they may well just fall out. 
Warning if you use this method incineration before either acid treatment is a must especially so after the hydrochloric and before the nitric, values may well be lost if you don't.


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## Lobby (Mar 29, 2012)

These pieces are new. I don't think touched by human hands yet. Well, much, anyway. :mrgreen: And I'm not talking springs, but larger parts imbedded into the GF material. Mechanical removal, while I'll certainly attempt it, doesn't seem practical.

I hear you about making sure no HCl and Nitric come together before their time, else I lose gold and other AR soluble values. Thanks for the incineration tip.

Is HCl more reactive to stainless steel than sulfuric? I've read elsewhere on this site (Hoke perhaps?), that sulfuric readily dissolves stainless.


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## Geo (Mar 29, 2012)

are you saying the magnetic material is plated? ive never heard of gold filled with a magnetic center. gold filled is normally gold over copper or some other softer base metal. gold fill starts out as a biscuit or a gold tube with a base metal center thats then rolled or stretched into shape. its hard to do that with a steel base metal.


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## Lobby (Mar 29, 2012)

OK, I'll spill.







GF watch crowns. The "stems" that connect the crown to the watch mechanism are either brass (no problemo), or stainless steel. As the pieces are small, I don't feel like snapping the SS off with a pair of nippers. None of the crowns, that I can tell, are magnetic.

I just want to nitric off copper, etc (is "nitric" a verb?), and then sulfuric off the stainless. Seems workable, but I thought I'd ask here first.

:lol:

Oh, note the grease in the one on the lower right. Looks like I'll be incinerating after all. :mrgreen:


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## nickvc (Mar 30, 2012)

I did a small batch of Rolex winder buttons,50-60 grams but 18 k and ran them in hot hydrochloric , it did a decent job but a little sorting was still required but much easier than trying to hand remove the caps.
If you have big volumes it will take time but it should remove the stainless or the vast majority of it.
Don't forget to incinerate after the hydrochloric


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## Eaheisler (Jun 16, 2013)

I've been processing the GFed watch caps &, if your caps are magnetic than the gold is over a stainless base. What I have been doing is... 

1. Use nitric step as you would any other material but, instead of using your calculated amount just use 100ml at a time over a slightly heated source. You will know by the change in reaction when it's time to move to the rolling boil.

2. Drain / filter as normal. Use some distilled water shaken around to grab the last little pieces.

3. Use a magnet to grab some stainless wash it in distilled water using the dip up and down to clean the nitric wash off.

4. The pile of stainless will have pieces of gold attached. Using a pair of fine tweezers peal the gold off. It will act just like pulling masking tape off of a car comming out of the paint booth. 

5. Add what you pulled off back to your main batch. 

6. The items that are still fully intact weigh & put in a container for your next batch. 

One saved round is that I've bought between 20-25 pounds of watches to scrap so not only can I run batches of just GF over stainless & split it up by cap design so that I know if I'm seeing the same cape twice.

However, I can't seem to get anything done with the gold fill over stainless beaded items. Anyone have some old timer suggestions?


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## au-artifax (Mar 21, 2014)

I know I will probably get blasted for this, but in my experience values are more easily lost in the incineration process than going switching from hcl to nitric or nitric to hcl.
When I do the switch after a rinse, in order to go after some different metals, any values dissolved in the very very miniscule amount of AR produced simply gets cemented back out in simple displacement reactions in the new acid bath. But yeah yeah... Hoke says this and that other thing or two, BUT she also points out single displacement reactions so why not go with the flow and use them.

OK guys, let me have it... Reinventing the wheel again.


PS: I have run into a lot of magnetic gold filled, but almost always it is in gold filled chains or links like necklaces or bracelets. Someone earlier also made a comment about gold filled items being rolled so they wouldn't use iron based metals. Don't you call that rolled gold which is different from gold filled?

As it relates to the above, after removing bulk base metals manually I use HCl first on the magnetic items. The product gets added to the non magnetic materials before I process the non magnetic with nitric. No values are lost. As an added note: Most of my watch band pieces from common vintage watches are magnetic, especially old spiedel watch bands.


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## butcher (Mar 22, 2014)

au-artifax,

I think you are wrong here, if done properly you will not lose values in the incineration process.

And you can be losing values switching from HCl to nitric without proper incineration between the processes, you are also losing some very important benefits of the incineration process.



You seem to like to argue, or seem to be trying to pick an argument, of what we know as facts, are you here to learn? Or are you just wasting your time here trying to pick an argument?

Worse than wrong in your thinking, you are also promoting misinformation, If you want to do without the incineration process between switching acids with your own scrap that is just fine, but do not be promoting that kind of nonsense here, it is hard enough trying to help those who wish to learn how to do this properly, we do not need someone coming here promoting misinformation and confusing those who wish to learn.


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## necromancer (Mar 22, 2014)

au-artifax said:


> I know I will probably get blasted for this, but in my experience values are more easily lost in the incineration process than going switching from hcl to nitric or nitric to hcl.
> When I do the switch after a rinse, in order to go after some different metals, any values dissolved in the very very miniscule amount of AR produced simply gets cemented back out in simple displacement reactions in the new acid bath. But yeah yeah... Hoke says this and that other thing or two, BUT she also points out single displacement reactions so why not go with the flow and use them.
> 
> OK guys, let me have it... Reinventing the wheel again.
> ...




another post by au-artifax


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## au-artifax (Apr 15, 2014)

butcher said:


> au-artifax,
> 
> I think you are wrong here, if done properly you will not lose values in the incineration process.
> 
> ...





Hi. I would be very interested in learning more of what the incineration process does for the procedure. I am not saying there are things I don't know. I am seriously not trying to argue, however it does get tiresome when everyone simply goes overboard and spends more time promoting their resumes than explaining the basis for their procedures. 
Please, do explain the benefits of incineration. I only have heard the negative side of the issue.


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## Palladium (Apr 15, 2014)

http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1997


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## joubjonn (Apr 15, 2014)

i think the issue is not being able to eliminate

1. dissolved base metals from the nitric or HCl treatments
2. nitric or HCl left over from the water rinses

i think if you have to ask yourself a question, what is your goal? 99.99 pure gold in a few more steps or are you happy with less pure gold drops because of drag down from dirty solutions that have base metals still dissolved.

i think you have to look at who on the forum comes up with these process's, people who have spent their lives refining and are willing to share these idea's with us. i think they have good advice, priceless advice. incinerating 100 grams of gold foils from ram chips after a nitric treat, ya you probably will loose a good percentage of that. incinerating material from 10 ounces of karat gold, it's neglagable compared to the quality of gold that will come out of the process.


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