# Questions about processing gold filled scrap



## croakersoaker (Mar 16, 2012)

Hey guys i have been buying karat gold and sending it to a refiner and have done pretty good.I starting buying some gold filled jewelry and have a few questions about processing.I have purchased laser steves video and was wondering if it is necessary to refine all the way to pure.the refiners do not accept gold filled and if the do they dont really pay squat for it.so i was wondering if you stop after the initial nitric digest of base metals are you essentially left with karat gold. would it be sufficient to melt the foils into a bar and send it off if you were planning on selling it to a refiner anyway.any idea as to the purity, i would imagine that you would have dissolved the base metals in the brass or whatever and even some in the karat layer since its usually so thin. Any thought would definately be appreciated thanks


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## butcher (Mar 16, 2012)

croakersoaker,

My thoughts,

You can bring it up to a higher purity and remelt to a higher karat, and you can test it to get an idea of the karat range, as long as your melt was mixed well, but it would be hard to tell the exact karat by using acid test kits (scatch test and needles). Example say you made it 23.5 karat, and had an ounce to sell, you and, or your buyer would test for 22k and would not be able to tell, what the actual karat was, so you will sell for the gold for less value selling at 22k, not knowing how much money you lost, and the more you done this the more money you could lose, or say you sold to a refinery, and still you only know by your testing it was above 22k but not exactly how much, the refiner may assay, but again your at his mercy as to how much gold he say's it is.
you can also drill and send off for a private assay, and if you have larger bars, you would at least know if the refiner was on the up and up with his pay on the value.

My thought it is up to you how far you wish to refine the gold, but if I went to all of the trouble to remove most all of the base metals to bring the metal or gold up in value, why not just finish the job the best I can with a few more steps, I have climbed up this far on this mountain, almost to the top, why not just finish the job, I have already done the hard part.


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## Geo (Mar 16, 2012)

i found that i was having that same issue.my work around was knowing my refined gold was nearly pure and 22K is 91.66% gold. so i started mixing gold powder to copper solids to bring the Karat down to 22K.if I'm going to sell my gold for 22K then they are going to get 22K.i test at home to be sure it passes the scratch test before i sell. i don't trust the mail with thousands of my hard earned dollars worth of gold,if i knew one of our members that was within driving distance,i would gladly sell to them at 95% spot on my refined gold.


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## nickvc (Mar 17, 2012)

Personally I only refine what needs refining to determine value, this is fine in my case as I can get assays easily and cheaply but if you can't then as Butcher said your over half way there so why not go the rest of the way, at least you will know what your trading. The other point to remember is that refining one material might well open up other avenues of income which refining can give, I'm a great believer in earning from any source that comes my way so knowledge is the key, can I recover the values and make a profit ?


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## its-all-a-lie (Mar 18, 2012)

Geo said:


> if i knew one of our members that was within driving distance,i would gladly sell to them at 95% spot on my refined gold.



How much do you produce to sell per month? I would be interested in buying if the quantity is not loo large. I am only about 75 miles from you.


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## Palladium (Mar 18, 2012)

I seen that :twisted:


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## mitchd (Mar 18, 2012)

Hi, This is my firt post so I hope that I don't get beat up to bad. My thought is that you should melt the gold fill as is first and then let the nitric acid do it's work. what is left should be darn near 24 karat gold. There is not much gold in gold fill and should be well under the 6 karat that you would make 10K 12k etc to do the same thing.


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## Geo (Mar 18, 2012)

mitchd said:


> Hi, This is my firt post so I hope that I don't get beat up to bad. My thought is that you should melt the gold fill as is first and then let the nitric acid do it's work. what is left should be darn near 24 karat gold. There is not much gold in gold fill and should be well under the 6 karat that you would make 10K 12k etc to do the same thing.



there's a couple things wrong with this.

1. your taking a known material with known content and turning it into an unknown lump.

2. there needs to be a mechanical separation first to remove as much base metal and unwanted material first.

3. it serves no purpose.it adds a process that neither helps with the dissolution or precipitation of values other than the benefit of incineration.


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## mitchd (Mar 18, 2012)

OK, I know it was an over simplefid process of just melting gold fill and putting into nitric acid and I should have added that watch bands should not be done like this just to much stainless steel and any stone you want should be removed so I should say that if you wish to know how much gold you have before you melt it you should do the math so you have an idea if its worth doing. 

If you put the gold fill into nitric acid you will end up with gold that is 10K, 12K, 14K some lead and a stainless steel and will have to add a little H2s04 for the lead and pick out the stainless then add enough copper and then melt it, to bring it to 6K and then do the NO3 process over again so you have to do this twice to make 24K gold or all most 24K gold.

If you melt the gold fill and bead it by pooring the melted metal into water while still moten and then take the beads of metal and put them into NO3, you will end up with gold and a little lead and a mixture of other meltals. for what croakersoaker whats is to sell this to a refinery what is left is just fine, the refinery will take the powder from this prosess with no problem and it will be more refined than sending the 10k,12k,14k foils to the refinery with the dissolving time cut in half and the cost of the NO3 cut in half you will end up with a better gold with the same cost as doing the first step in the prosses.

Some times it not about making pure gold, it about saving time and cost makes money.

I know that a lot of you will not agree with this but tell me how this will not work.


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## Geo (Mar 18, 2012)

it would be just as easy to say, throw everything in a beaker and dissolve in AR and precipitate the gold from a dirty solution and then refine it again.but advise like that isn't given because too many new members dont know how to deal with dirty solutions.so theres steps to be taken to ensure that different metals are addressed in the order it needs to come out.that way a beginner can learn to do it the correct way first and after they have more experience they can learn to cut corners.


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## Harold_V (Mar 19, 2012)

mitchd said:


> Hi, This is my firt post so I hope that I don't get beat up to bad. My thought is that you should melt the gold fill as is first and then let the nitric acid do it's work. what is left should be darn near 24 karat gold. There is not much gold in gold fill and should be well under the 6 karat that you would make 10K 12k etc to do the same thing.


Welcome to the forum. 

Not to fear about being beat up. People with manners do quite well here.

A little bit of advice on gold filled materials. 

There is no need, and, especially, no benefit in melting. Because the layer of gold alloy is generally very thin, it can be processed perfectly well without melting. Simply incinerate, to remove oils and other unwanted substances, then digest directly in dilute nitric acid. The gold alloy will be returned as a thin sheet, possibly even as fine particles, depending on how badly it was worn. They settle rapidly, unlike the yield from melted gold filled objects. 

When you melt gold filled materials, the gold percentage is too low for the gold to remain in a honeycombed piece. As a result of the fine distribution of gold in the base metal, it is released in microscopic particles that can be difficult to settle. The net result is a prolonged waiting period, with no real benefits, plus the real possibility of losing some of the gold, depending on how you deal with the resulting solution. All in all, I would discourage you from melting, for any reason, unless you use the gold filled material as feed for inquartation. 

The gold that is released, while alloyed, is generally partially leached of base metals and silver. It will readily dissolve in AR, for recovery by precipitation. It can also be well washed with HCl, assuming you have incinerated a second time to eliminate traces of nitric. That often performs a valuable service in removing traces of tin, often found in conjunction with gold filled objects. 

Harold

Edit: None of this would apply to watch bands, which contain stainless in various ways. I had the best results with such items by stripping with cyanide, in a cell. That is most likely beyond the ability of most folks here, due to the difficulty of buying and dealing with cyanide, which is as it should be. Sell them, or strip them by hand, which is a slow process.


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## Lobby (Mar 29, 2012)

croakersoaker said:


> Hey guys i have been buying karat gold and sending it to a refiner and have done pretty good.I starting buying some gold filled jewelry and have a few questions about processing.I have purchased laser steves video and was wondering if it is necessary to refine all the way to pure.the refiners do not accept gold filled and if the do they dont really pay squat for it.so i was wondering if you stop after the initial nitric digest of base metals are you essentially left with karat gold. would it be sufficient to melt the foils into a bar and send it off if you were planning on selling it to a refiner anyway.any idea as to the purity, i would imagine that you would have dissolved the base metals in the brass or whatever and even some in the karat layer since its usually so thin. Any thought would definately be appreciated thanks



What you'll gain by this concept is getting paid closer to the 95% - 98% that most refiners pay for scrap gold, not the smaller amounts they pay for gold filled, assuming they buy it at all. The problem with this, as Butcher comments, is that you have no idea what the gold content of your remaining bar is. Thus you remain at the mercy of the refiner; if he's trustworthy, then you're ok. If not, you'll get sheared.

Listen to Harold's advice, too. Don't melt this stuff prior to processing it. Even if you use a propane torch to incinerate it, you'll still see the oils catching fire and burning off the jewelry; and this will significantly simplify post processing.


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