# Problem with gold/borax torch melt



## Anarchy618 (Feb 6, 2018)

I used a solution of muriatic acid & H2O to strip gold off some plates by dipping them in solution and then using an eye dropper to drop clorox/bleach in solution few drops per dish. As soon as you drop in clorox you watch the gold immediately begin to dissolve. After a test run (as this was my very 1st attempt at gold recovery & I am very eagerly starving for any & all education, constructive criticism, new ideas or even someone putting me in my place if I'm doing something the wrong way & making you cringe while viewing the unbearable gold waste at mine own hands) I then used SMB/Stump Out to "drop" the dissolved gold from the acid solution without doing stannous chloride (tin solder/tin powder dissolved in muriatic/hydrochloric acid in small amounts due to the degradation/lifetime of product after mixing occurs being just a few months) test due to inability of excercising patience from excitement of 1st time. You can all yell at me later about skipping that MOST IMPORTANT part & tell me how foolish of a thing to "not do" that was while working with such a rare, beautiful, magnificent & very valuable precious metal after you first help me with answering my melting problem. 1st just to let the weary breathe better & relax, I saved every drop of solution & totally plan on using stannous chloride (tin solder/tin powder + muriatic acid) to test for gold in solution on next venture. 2nd after dropping gold & filtering my awesome brown sludge (which is PURE gold) that formed over night from SMB/Stump out helping it to form/precipitate, I let the filter air dry for an hour or two and then folded the filter & attempted a melt by way of benzomatic propane torch & homemade melting dish (before learning MAPP gas is much more suitable for task at hand) & I used borax to glaze & then to melt. Problem is instead of seeing a nice little gold button I ended up with a hardened piece of kinda half transparent goo with visable pieces of flaky gold. Question is, where do I go from here & why did this happen, what caused this reaction? Was it from using too much borax during melt? Not melted enough? Plz help! I'll try attaching pics.


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## kernels (Feb 6, 2018)

OK, so it sounds like you dissolved Gold trim from dinner plates ? If this is so, you should be aware that you will need a LOT of plates to get any significant Gold.

When you precipitate Gold, you should never be filtering the Gold powder out. You essentially keep the Gold in the same beaker you precipitate it in until it has been washed and dried. Gold powder is often fine enough to make it through filters, and melting Gold in a filter is more painful than just the powder by itself.

Regarding the melt, you want to use at least MAPP gas, I prefer two MAPP gas torches simultaneously for anything over a few grams also. You want to place the crucible in a little fire brick enclosure to also retain as much heat as possible in the crucible. 

If you have enough Gold, the little beads will coalesce in the Borax and form a button, but you really don't want to be melting less than a few grams at a time. 

With what you have now . . . a vigorous boil in water will dissolve Borax and free the Gold flakes.


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## g_axelsson (Feb 6, 2018)

Kernels are giving you good advice.

I just wanted to show you that it is possible to work with small amounts of gold too.
Gold from one IC : http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=7056
Gold from one circuit board : http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=23737

The first thread shows easy melting a small amount. The second filtering and precipitating a small amount of gold. Both threads works with refining 10 and 50 mg gold from scrap to melting a (tiny) button.

Melting can fail because of a couple of reasons.
- Too little heat, get a bigger or hotter torch.
- Too much cooling, insulate the melting dish and create a heat reflector.
- Too large melting dish, use a smaller dish and less borax to make it easier for gold to clump together in a single button.
And I'm sure a lot of other reasons too. The first two goes together, if the heat escapes fast then you will not reach melting temp. With good insulation you can manage with a smaller torch or melt larger batches faster.

Welcome to the forum.

Göran


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## Anarchy618 (Feb 17, 2018)

I need to apologize for not responding to thank you all for your answers. I am a new user to the forum and couldn't figure out where to look for responses to my posts. I'm just reading the responses now & am a bit embarrassed. Just got a bit confused but now I've finally got how this site operates. You guys are awesome on this forum, all of you. Thanks for all your data, knowledge, wisdom and taking the time to educate, answer & constructively criticize a laymen new to the processes & diff chemicals etc like me. I've found this site to be extremely helpful over all others.


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## yellowfoil (Mar 12, 2018)

How many gold plated items did you strip and how rich (surface area) was the plating?


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