# Inquarting question



## artart47 (Apr 2, 2012)

I'm curious! 
I'm aquiring scrap jewelry for almost nothing. Everyone has heard that i'm the "gold guy" and are offering me gold stuff for a few bucks. Very poor city here!
I'm lined up to buy nitric right here in milwaukee but I'm not yet set up to safely work with it.
If I was to inquart karet and filled jewelry with copper and cornflaked it, could I use acid peroxide/my copper chloride solution instead of nitric to remove the base metals?
Thanks!
artart47


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## lazersteve (Apr 2, 2012)

Copper will work for inquarting. Gold filled contains a variety of metals and trash in it's weight so I would stray away from using it due to the inaccuracies associated with it's actual content and the proper inquarting numbers. 

Inquarting karat with copper will require nearly four times as much nitric to dissolve the same weight of silver. This is why silver is used to inquart. 

Copper and Gold Filled items also take more heat to melt than silver which means more energy (and cost) is required to get the job done.

Steve


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## Westerngs (Apr 3, 2012)

All true about inquarting with silver vs copper. But copper is cheaper.

Also, you could try inquarting with zinc. Watch out for the fumes though, zinc oxidizes very quickly and if you inhale enough of them (fumes - and it doesn't take a lot of fumes) you get metal fume fever. Nasty thing with fever, chills etc. Wear a good respirator if you decide to go down that route. And preferably melt outside or in a setup with very good exhaust ventilation.


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## nickvc (Apr 3, 2012)

Another reason to use silver is that it acts as a collector for any PGMs in your karat scrap.
It also becomes self funding eventually as the silver content in the karat scrap is accumulated and by using cementation to collect the silver its available for reuse very quickly.


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## butcher (Apr 3, 2012)

I have had zinc fever several times, from welding galvanized metal; wet rags, and fans do not help to protect you, high fever sweats, and shaking and freezing three days without sleep is no fun.

Trust me in quartering with zinc is a bad idea, in my opinion.

Silver can be cheaper than copper to use, in my opinion, (this somewhat would also depend on how cheap you can get nitric acid, and how easy it is to get).

You get back the silver, (copper is basically lost in the system).

Silver can be reused several times (depending on PGM's involved),

If you use sterling it also helps to remove copper from the sterling in the process, silver uses less nitric than copper, and your doing two jobs at once (if you used sterling), actually making the nitric usage less for recovery silver and gold.

Silver will also collect PGM’s involved, another bonus with some gold like dental gold.


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## artart47 (Apr 3, 2012)

Hey, Thanks!
It was an idea. I'll wait till I get set up for nitric.
I'll let everyone know what I end up paying for it. I'm 10mis. away so shipping and has-mat won't be a concearn.

Later!
artart47


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