# "gold filled" wire



## AuMINIMayhem (May 19, 2007)

I just got my hands on about 30 odd feet of 22 gauge "half-hard" gold filled wire.. I'm thinking of cutting it into small pieces and processing it as you would pins. I'd love any input as I'm starting anew and would be really excited to be able to post a success story for once on here.. :lol: :lol: 

Thanks guys,
Derek


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 20, 2007)

20 views and no help?..  

*bump*


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## lazersteve (May 20, 2007)

Mayhem,

I just bought two sections of it myself, one 81 feet and another 65 feet. I have not started in on it yet but here is my overall plan:

-Melt the wire and slowly pour into a deep SS pot filled with cold water to cornflake.
- Dissolve the 'cornflakes' in nitric acid leaving the gold as a powder 
- Refining gold powder as usual

I'll share my experiences with the forum as I get into this project.

Steve


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 20, 2007)

thanks, man.. hey, did you get the package?


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## lazersteve (May 20, 2007)

Yes,

I'll PM you with some info soon.

Steve


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 20, 2007)

so, nitric?.. I was thinking of trying to process the wire like pins by cutting it into maybe 1-2 inch sections.. are you planning on the nitric because it is "gold filled" as opposed to "plated"? I hope you don't think I'm second guessing you, quite the contrary, I'm just trying to understand the methodology behind it. It's all about learning from the masters. :wink:


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## lazersteve (May 20, 2007)

Mayhem, 

I have chosen to go with inquartation with nitric because gold filled is too tough for the weaker bath type methods. Also it's already inquarted once melted so you don't have to add any other metals to it.

Steve


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 20, 2007)

Ok.. I follow you. 

So what I gather from researching a bit on certified "gold filled" items is that the numbers designate the percentage of the overall mass.. such as this 1-20 12kt, means 1/20th of the overall weight is 12kt gold.. am I figuring this correctly?.. seems like a much more reliable system than plated, since there's no real standard of measure for the total amount of gold on the material..

(I'm just thinking out loud here, but feel free to chime in.. )


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## catfish (May 20, 2007)

Hi AuMin----------

You have stated in your post that gold filled is better than gold plated... You are most certainly right. I buy karat gold and resell. I always buy gold filled items and refine them and resell the gold as pure. (Industry standards at 995 pure) 

You are right on determining the amount of gold content in filled items. 12k/24=.50X weight X .05 or .10 = amount of gold. (1/10 or 1/20) Example of 12k 1/20 gold filled and if the item weighed 10 Grams, you would wind up theoretically with .25 grams of gold or 2.5% gold. On 12k 1/10 gold filled you wind up with 5.0% gold on the total item. I never buy filled or rolled gold for much money. Usually for about 60% of the estimated amount of gold content of 2.5 to 5.0% depending on the amount filled or rolled. 

Example -- 1/20 14K at 10dwt. .05 X .583 X 10.0 = .29dwt of pure gold.

The gold filled or rolled items always produce more actual gold than gold plating does. I measure gold plating at the best at 1.5% downward to zero (gold Flashed). The best way to determine the amount of gold plating on an item, is to put 1 gram of the gold plated material in 10 ml of 50% nitric acid and if the plating comes off in small flakes then it is low gold plating, but if it comes off in whole plating, then it is high gold plating, usually around 1.0% to 1.5%. This takes some experience in telling the difference.

The big difference in gold filled or rolled is how you refine it. I refine quite a bit of the gold filled and I use regular Sodium Nitrate and Hydrochloric solution (sic) aqua regia. I try to make the pieces as small as I can. Then dissolve them. On what doesn’t dissolve due to the silver chloride coating the pieces, I take those and boil them in Ammonia Hydroxide and after all the silver is dissolved off the items, I then put them back in AR again and dissolve. Some times you get some items that this will not work on and you have to boil the items in nitric acid. I have found that most of the gold filled jewelry doesn’t have much silver in it, so dissolving it the traditional way is not much problems.

Closing advice, buy all the gold filled and rolled items you can, but just make sure you don’t pay much for them. It takes a lot of work to get the gold out of them. They pay off much better than gold plated items.

Catfish


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 20, 2007)

WOW!!.. Whopper of a reply, Catfish! Thanks!  

you mentioned "nitrite" and "nitrate" acids, but not "nitric".. is there a difference between the three? (It's been so long since I've had a chemistry 101 class, bt I vaguely remember the suffix of chemicals being really important as they designated something about their composition..)

I swear I'm not being a smart-aleck, I'm actually serious.. (just in case)


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## catfish (May 20, 2007)

Sorry about that. 

The words should be Nitric Acid (HNO3) and Nitrate Soda (NaNO3) which is synonymous with Sodium Nitrate. Just a lot easier to get and much cheaper.

When you get to be an old fart, certain parts of your anatomy doesn’t always follow your brain.


Catfish


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 20, 2007)

PMSL!! :lol: :lol: 

tis alright, just making sure, before I blew myself up..  (and I'd be the one to do that, trust me :lol: )


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 21, 2007)

A CPU.. :twisted:


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