# the Auric chloride attempt



## AuMINIMayhem (May 13, 2007)

Well.. I tried making making Auric Chloride last night per the tutorial in a vain attempt to pull the gold out of the mess I had from my cell (you know all the adventures by now :lol: ). I also chipped out the pieces of tile that looked contaminated and tried to dissolve any pm's that might have gottten absorbed into them.. 

I made a mixture of 50/50 Hydrochloric Acid and Chlorox, (approx. 1/2 gallon total), then I heated the mixture for a few hours in a hot bath. Since most of what I was trying to dissolve was a mish mash of powdered tiles and precipitates, I figured a couple of hours was long enough. I did have some success with making some Stannous using tin solder and HCL and was able to see a mild change when I put a drop of the bath and a drop of the stannous on a coffee filter.. ok.. good so far..

Then before I went to bed last night, I boiled up some water and put about 6 oz. of SMB in it and let it dissolve while I diluted the "Auric" with about 1.5 gallons of water, like shown in Steve's tutorial. I then poured in the SMB mix, stirred it vigorously for a few minutes (and choking on the fumes :shock: ) and let it sit overnight in a 5 gallon clean white paint bucket (with lid laying on top, but not tight to release fumes).. 

This morning, (about 12 hours later or so) although a lot of "stuff" dropped to the bottom of the bucket, there's still quite a lot of stuff in suspension.. I poured off the top to another clean bucket just to see what was at the bottom and it's a lot of thick black powder (I thought it should be brown..???).. I'm going to let it set for another 24 hours or so and see if it settles any more..

I know at the moment there's a BUNCH of crud in my stuff.. my goal was just to reclaim ANY gold before I lose it.. my goal is not purifying it at this point, I'm just trying to capture it, I'll refine it later..
:wink: 

This has become such a pain..LOL!.. I wish I had found this forum prior to me playing around with it, now I'm afraid it may be all lost and I'm dang near considering just chucking this batch and starting all over with a new batch (and the new knowledge/techniques I've gained since I oined the boards).. but there is this part of me that won't be satisfied if I don't take on this challenge first.. I know how to do things the right way now, so I can always start anew, but this is an awesome puzzle as well.. 

Anwyays, I'm at a loss..So here's the question: should I keep trying to get the gold out of this stuff or chalk it up as a loss and start fresh with everything that I've learned over the couple of weeks on here?..


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## lazersteve (May 13, 2007)

Mayhem,

You should solve the puzzle.

I suggest you take a small amount of the mystery batch and solve the problem. Then apply what you learn to the overall batch when you have the solution.

Steve


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## goldsilverpro (May 13, 2007)

I think you'll learn a lot if you try to recover it.


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## catfish (May 13, 2007)

Mayhem:

Did you filter your solution good before you added the precipitant. You should have gottten rid of any junk before you pecipitated the solution. SMB should only precip gold only. By the way I often get black mud and it turns out to be very fine gold after many steps taken to clean it up. I just took some very black mud from Aqua Regia last week and followed Harold's advice in cleaning gold. After all the washes, boiling, and rinses and refining the mud again, it came out very light brown, thickened up, fell like a rock to the bottom of the beaker and stuck together very good. I was amazed at the results.

Hang in there, you will figure it out. 

"If it was easy, they would let the girls do it."

Catfish


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 13, 2007)

catfish said:


> "If it was easy, they would let the girls do it."
> 
> Catfish



:lol: :lol: :lol: 

cool... I will do what I can.


BTW.. yes, I tried to filter it out as best as possible, unfortunately I don't have a vacuum filter so that takes too much time, plus I had also put all the bits I chipped out of the kiln that looked like they may have absorbed some metal content.. Steve, good call I test the tiles with my voltmeter and I think you may have been right on the money..


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 13, 2007)

catfish said:


> I just took some very black mud from Aqua Regia last week and followed Harold's advice in cleaning gold. After all the washes, boiling, and rinses and refining the mud again, it came out very light brown, thickened up, fell like a rock to the bottom of the beaker and stuck together very good. Catfish



could you hook me up with a link to that process, so I can try it out on a batch of this stuff?... That'd be sweet!

Thanks guys!
Derek

(you guys must think I'm such a dunce..LOL!)


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## AgAuPtRh (May 13, 2007)

Mayhem -- if you mosey on over to the help needed section and belly up to the Getting gold shining stool -- light yourself a good cigar and slowly absorb the experience. You'll soon be grabbing the pebble from the masters hand. 


Thanks to the catfish for ageless wisdom.      :lol: :lol: 

You ever been noodlin catfish??? 

Steve K


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## catfish (May 13, 2007)

Hi Mayhem:

You need to get yourself a vacuum filter system. You buy the Buchner funnel, whatman filters 1.5 and filter beaker on eBay. Don’t buy the cheap plastic pump they advertise. Buy your vacuum pump from harbor Freight Tools. The pump costs about $15.00 and you get a reservoir jar and plenty of adapters and hose with it. It is a heavy duty metal (brass) pump. I ruined two of the plastic pumps before I got smart and started using a drip jar in series with the beaker and pump. The acids will ruin the pump in seconds. If you need any info on this rig hit me back. The vacuum will save you a lot of time and the filters work much better than the coffee filters. You can buy different media type filters too. I found that the whatman 1.5 works best for me.

It looks like Steve K. has already directed you to the link about shinny gold.

Steve K.

No, I have never been noodlin, we use “DuPont spinners” (dynamite) exclusively down in south Louisiana for catfish. That way you don’t have to get wet, not to mention, wrestle with a big logger head turtle or Gator.


Catfish


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 14, 2007)

catfish said:


> No, I have never been noodlin, we use “DuPont spinners” (dynamite) exclusively down in south Louisiana for catfish. That way you don’t have to get wet, not to mention, wrestle with a big logger head turtle or Gator.
> 
> 
> Catfish



HA HA!!... that's how us southern boys roll!.. we used to call it "Boom Jiggin" :lol: :lol: 

Thanks for the tips Steve and the Cat.. 

Derek


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## Noxx (May 14, 2007)

And what about me ?  I voted too !


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 14, 2007)

Noxx said:


> And what about me ?  I voted too !



Noxx.. I would never forget you.. I was in a hurry, my apologies, mate! (have limited time at work when no-one is a lookin at what I'm doing..)



.. and a BIG shout-out to Noxx for the encouragement as well!  :lol:


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 14, 2007)

ok.. either, there is no gold in what I have orrrrr.. I'm screwing up somehow ( I tend to think the latter)...

I turned this pile of scrap gold plated/filled bangle bracelets (about 10 lbs.)







Into this precipitate (this is after all the fowl-ups with the kiln and this particular "Auric Chloride" attempt).. it's also a small portion of it.. you didn't think I'd "experiment with ALL of it did you?






and put about 4 tablespoons of it into two seperate cupels (I did make sure to treat them with the borax first) and placed them in my kiln.. I got the temp up to about 1850-1900f and pulled them out to find either all the "stuff" had burned off or had absorbed into the cupel.. perhaps it was in the kiln too long? or perhaps I should try the alternate method of using the MAPP torch so that I can keep the stuff swirling around?..

(an untreated, clean cupel is on the right for color comparison, the middle cupel was left in for a shorter period of time and the one on the left was left in the longest, the color of the stuff in the middle one is actually off for some reason, in real life it is a greyish-pink color, I'm assuming residual borax as I added some occasionally)






Ok.. I'm an idiot..  :lol: I so want to give up on this and start over, but I'm not going to.. I'll get it right ( I think I can, I think I can, I think I can :roll: )


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## lazersteve (May 14, 2007)

Mayhem,

The left most cupel *appears* to have several tiny dots in it, are they gold colored at all? I can't tell from the photo. A closeup of that cupel would be great. The micro BB's may have surface discoloration from impurities, if they are in fact BB's.?!

The temperature range you quoted is not quite high enough to fully melt gold (1900 F = 1038 C, gold melts at 1064C).

The middle cupel doesn't look like much happened except partial melting of the borax.

Steve


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## AgAuPtRh (May 14, 2007)

have you tested any of the material you have -- before treating it? 

some of the newer "plated material" is "flash plated" It's an incredibly thin layer of gold not really proving much of a return. 

It could be mayhem that your gold yield is too small in just a few spoonfuls to make a button in the cupel. 

hang in there. do a few tests on your material BEFORE laying out any chems and additional funds on doo doo. Just speaking from experience. On more than one occasion my excitement and zeal prevented me from taking my time and testing. I bought a couple of bogus items on ebay and learned. I email every seller with an item I might be interested in -- and not really familiar with -- and not really described in a manner that I'm ready to bid -- if they have tested the items for sale. No valid testing.........No bid.............
No marks.........no bid.............no hallmarks.......no bid. 

are your items stamped or marked as being plated???


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 14, 2007)

AgAu.. thanks.. yeah I did some esting and definately gold in there, how much I have no idea..


Steve, those black dots are actually "pits" in the bottom of the cupel.. upon further inspection I was able to see very teeny-tin little dots of something "goldish" in color.. I looked even closer (under a microscope 10X) and there definately appears to be gold bb's but the are infintesimaly (that _is_ a word, right?) small.. so that's at least promising.. I know I wasn't processing a big batch, so I didn't expect a huge yield and seeing those tiny little dots (about the size of a grain of baking powder) I'm now getting more positive about what may be there..

One question, does the stuff just staying still in the cupel make a difference or would I be better off trying to swirl the material into a ball with a torch like in the tutorial?.. I'm wondering if it's just because I'm not stirring it and just letting it sit in the kiln ... probably should have let it get hotter as well.. 

well... the mistery deepens.. but I remain optimistic.. :wink:


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## shadybear (May 15, 2007)

I get those little gold dots sometimes when I heat with my MAPP Usaully
they are in combo with my button.
I have noticed though that the dirtier my preceps the more little dots I have.


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