# My first button



## Kaydreein (Mar 29, 2012)

Weighing in at 2.7 grams, it's tiny but it's all mine~


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## maynman1751 (Mar 29, 2012)

It's 1.2g bigger than my first. Has great color! Congrats!


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## Palladium (Mar 29, 2012)

Very nice job!


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## Kaydreein (Mar 30, 2012)

Thank you! 

It would have been slightly larger if I hadn't learned a valuable - or expensive - lesson while trying to rinse the powder. I used ammonia in the hopes that it would take any silver chlorides out, but I think I ended up making tiny pockets of silver nitride instead. While I was doing a water rinse and drying out the powder, there was a small detonation that caused me to lose about a gram of powder.


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## Palladium (Mar 30, 2012)

If you dry your powder to quick and it pops or explodes throwing some out it is most likely because of steam build up in the materials and a sudden release that seems like an explosion.


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## Geo (Mar 30, 2012)

i lost nearly an ounce to steam explosions one time a few months ago. now i cover everything nearly, unless im evaporating.


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## Kaydreein (Mar 30, 2012)

Well, at least it's good to know that I didn't accidentally make an explosive compound. Have definitely learned to keep a watch glass over the beaker from now on. Hmm, I wonder if some sort of cheese cloth would work to allow steam to escape and keep accidents contained.


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## Palladium (Mar 31, 2012)

You shouldn’t need a watch glass or anything when the gold is dried correctly. The way I do mine is I filter it into the beaker I plan to precipitate it in. It is very important that this beaker be spotless clean as well as no scratches. Dirt and scratches allow your gold to adhere to the surface of the beaker making it difficult to get your gold to release and move around. When you do your final water wash you should decant down to just enough that you can get the gold to move to a corner of the beaker. Once you get your gold in a corner slowly rotate the beaker so the last bit of water drains off the gold. The gold is heavy and should cling to one side of the beaker allowing the water to drain. You can use a eye dropper, turkey bester, or what have you to remove the last traces of water. At this point your gold should be just lightly wet. Turn your heat on a low setting and allow the beaker to sit until I see steam start to come off the gold. At this point I pick the beaker up for a minute and let it cool down while it evaporates moisture. I place it back on the heat source and start the process over until the gold changes color and the liquid water is gone. When the gold starts to change color I bump the side of the beaker and the gold releases. You can then swirl the loose gold around the beaker to collect the other gold. Once the gold is what you think is dry you can then heat it up to drive off the last bit or residual moisture without fear of steam explosions. Steam explosions happen when you go to fast


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## Harold_V (Mar 31, 2012)

You've learned well, Ralph.

Harold


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## Palladium (Mar 31, 2012)

Harold_V said:


> You've learned well, Ralph.
> 
> Harold




I have good teachers.


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## old thompson (Mar 31, 2012)

Nice!

Nice avatar too Kaydreein.


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