# Help with smelting gold from ore



## Anonymous (Jul 17, 2010)

Hi, I am new to this forum and refininggold in general.

I have some family property that I recently found an ore deposit on. I am trying to figure out the steps to smelt gold ore, which contains also silver, copper and platinum, into something I can sell.

The ore has been assayed @ 60 ounces per ton of the above metals. The concentrations of each vary but the breakdown is approximately as follows:
Silver = 23oz/ ton
Copper = 9oz/ ton
Gold = 19 oz/ton
Platinum = 7 oz/ ton
The remaining is made up of other metals like palladium.
(Will post picture of my ore once I get batteries for my camera today)

My problem is I have no idea what to do in order to get the metals out of the talcum powder ore that I can extract. Under a microscope I can see the tiny flakes but in water it looks like glitter floating around and when I heat it up to 1900 F all I get it black slag.

Again I know nothing about this stuff. Any help would be most appreciated. Especially a step by step process for smelting.

(BTW - I have used a induced gas flotation device to float the glitter out into a meal type or wet flour like concentrated ore minus the rock but just can't melt it.)

Thanks - NBM


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## Anonymous (Jul 17, 2010)

Are you sure the have the right to dig. Here's how the big boys stake claims in these modern times.

http://www.geoexplo.com/


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## butcher (Jul 18, 2010)

yes you may own property, but that does not mean you own mineral rights, at least in this part of the country, someone else like a big oil company can buy the mineral rights. where is your property? I have been looking to stake a claim.


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## Harold_V (Jul 18, 2010)

NBM,
To be perfectly honest, those numbers are a little too bold to be considered realistic. That is particularly true where the platinum metals are concerned. Can you disclose the method that was used for the determination?

Right now, your biggest concern should be if your report is valid, or not. If you find that a fire assay yields similar results, you can then pursue an avenue by which you can extract the values. There is no single method for all ores. Yours may require considerable research before arriving at a reliable process by which you can extract the values, assuming they're really there. 

I strongly encourage you to get a fire assay on your ore, one from an independent operator who has nothing to lose or gain by providing an honest report. Many people have been promoted ruthlessly by false promises of high values that simply weren't there. Be very cautious. 

One other thing to consider. You may own the land, but not the minerals. They are often claimed by others (even when there is nothing to claim). Do your homework before you spend any money. 

Harold


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## Anonymous (Jul 18, 2010)

I know the mineral rights are owned by my family. First thing I checked. 

I honestly do not know what method was used but it was assayed by two different people.

I am really new to all this and do not know what a fire assay is but I will request one and post a picture of it. If they will email to me in pdf then i will post that.

I thought the numbers sounded outrageous as well. That is another reason I am posting here because I figure people who are truly invested in this type of stuff would be able to tell me how it is before I got all excited if there was no need to if you know what i mean. 

It would be great if I can make out on this but if it I have been given false info its best to know now. 

Altho I have to say under a microscope it looks like thousands of tiny little gold flakes.

I might even be able to get a mass spec reading if I can talk to an old professor at the university and see if they will run sample.

Thanks for all the honest upfront assesment all. Good or bad I will post the results.
--NBM


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## Harold_V (Jul 18, 2010)

One thing in your favor is that high grade gold deposits are no stranger to Colorado. I personally processed a small lot of ore, from Colorado, that assayed well over 300 ounces/ton. The only thing that gives me doubts is that you are talking about a serious amount of platinum metals. The US is clearly NOT a mass producer of these metals, although they are somewhat widespread in low concentrations. Sand from the southern Utah desert, for example. 

The true value of a fire assay is that if it is performed by someone that is well qualified, the results can be duplicated in recovery. It is also an inexpensive method of assaying, and very precise, assuming they are conducted properly. 

If I am to assume that, by chance, your numbers for the platinum metals is correct, you most likely would want to process by furnace. You, otherwise, may not recover much, if any, of the platinum metals. 

It is generally accepted that you can not process ores by acid alone. That may not be true in your case, assuming you could concentrate by floatation. A lot depends on what you really have, and your ability to reduce the ore to fine particles. 

Please do keep us posted. Sounds like an exciting project. 

Harold


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## qst42know (Jul 18, 2010)

gustavus said:


> Are you sure the have the right to dig. Here's how the big boys stake claims in these modern times.
> 
> http://www.geoexplo.com/




If I remember correctly some form of these aerial surveys are how the geologist that first discovered the volcanic diamond pipes in Canada applied for the mineral rights for a large portion of the rest of them. The lake above his original discovery was wired to confuse the sensor readings of competitors fly overs.


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## HAuCl4 (Jul 18, 2010)

Fire Assay

In this type of assay ore is ground and a weighed amount, usually 30 or 40 grams is mixed with an assay flux. We will go into fluxes later. The ore and flux is placed in a clay crucible and heated at about 1100 C or 1850 F for about an hour or until it is a thick, homogenous liquid. This melt is then poured into a cone shaped mold. This cone will consist of a bottom piece of lead with all the values dissolved as an amalgam. This cone of lead is called a "prill". The top or wide end of the cone will consist of a lump of glass containing all sorts of impurities. 

The lead is separated from the glass by simply smashing it with a hammer. The lead is further pounded into a cube. This cube is weighed. The lead cube containing the values is now put into a sort of a cup with a very thick bottom, made from bone ash or cement. This cup is called a cupel. That is Q-ple not cup-l. If you drop this info at a cocktail party you wouldn’t want to mis-pronounce it. 

The cupel with the lead is placed back into the furnace and heated at 1000 degrees or so. The door to the furnace is usually left open a crack so that air can enter. At this temperature the lead rapidly combines with the oxygen in the air and is converted back into lead oxide. You see, another redox reaction. First it was reduced from lead oxide to metallic lead and now it is being oxidized back to lead oxide. I’ll explain this better when we get to fluxes. 

The molten lead oxide now soaks into the cupel. Don’t ask why, it’s just the nature of the beast. Bone ash or cement will absorb large quantities of lead oxide. When all of the lead oxide has soaked in you will be left with a very small sphere of metal. This sphere contains all of the precious metals except for Osmium. In the trade they say, "if you can cupel it, you can sell it". Anything that remains after cupeling is precious metal. 

Now this tiny lump is weighed. Next it is flattened by smashing it with a hammer. This is to increase the surface area. Remember about surface area? The flat metal piece is put into a small porcelain dish and treated with 50% nitric acid until there is no more reaction. The remaining piece of metal is dried and weighed. 

The reason for weighing before and after the nitric acid treatment is that you probably want to know how much silver you had in the sample. Since the nitric acid removes the silver the difference between the first weighing and the second is the amount of silver that was in the sample. The metals remaining after this acid treatment are gold and the platinum metals. 

more and more step-by-step instructions from: http://www.prospectorsparadise.com/html/assaying.html


I must say that your "ore" must be one of the richest % deposits on earth. I would double check or triple check my numbers in your case, and if true, keep my whereabouts secret!. 

Finding "ore" like this is the hard part. Getting the values out is a no brainer compared to finding them!. Many here and out there can orient you on best methods which depend on the amount of volume of "ore" that you wish to process per day. 

What I used to recommend to my mining clients was that they build their operation as a "bootstrap", i.e. Get the lion's share of the values by the cheapest methods available and build a bank, the "tailings" from the ore can be processed later when they have produced and saved money. This would be especially true and valid for "ore" of the high grade that you have mentioned. Think about it: How many thousands of $ per Ton are there in your "ore", and how many can you get at cheaply?.

Most of these high grade "ore" finds are of very little volume of such high grade surrounded by lots more lower grade, but very exploitable in volume, ORE. What you have described is probably the main vein of the ore deposit. 8) Good luck!.

If your ore is as rich as you have described, I would smelt it in a medium sized furnace...even if you can process just 5 tons per day, the numbers are very big. Most important of all: Don't tell ANYONE any details of location, etc. and keep all the sensitive info to yourself and maybe close family!.


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## qst42know (Jul 18, 2010)

Hand selected samples will always assay much higher than what a mine can actually produce. 

If you pick only at the stripe of cinnamon in a loaf of bread your test may well indicate all cinnamon. But there may only be a gram or two in the whole loaf.

You have to consider what surrounds this band of material three dimensionally to give meaning to your test results.


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## Richard36 (Jul 18, 2010)

Hello NBM,

You were given some really good advice.
A fire assay from a representative sample of the ore deposit is truly a must.
Several would be better.

How do you plan to work this deposit?
Open pit, glory hole, tunnel site?
That is crittical need to know info if I am to help with suggesting a proper way to get a representative sample, or samples to have assayed.
I haven't heard anyone cover that aspect yet, though it was said that selected prospectors hand samples almost always do assay higher than what is actually there.
I have made that mistake in my early years as a prospector as well, almost all of us do.

Anyway, yeah, have some honest tests done, and know for sure what you have. 
Then we can figure out what needs to be done to recover what you have.

I wish you all the best, and I truly do hope that the numbers stay high for you.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## Anonymous (Jul 18, 2010)

As you all have said, I only extracted a sample from the main black rock vein of a much larger formation.
The Black rock vein is where these values are obviously the highest. The surrounding rock in the formation has little or no metals.

The overall size of the formation is quite large but I will probably only extract the black rock jutting above the ground.
I have not even considered yet what the formation undeground looks like.

As I have stated, this is all new to me. My only experience before getting into this was panning for gold in a river 25 years ago on a family vacation in grade school.

If I had to hazard a guess the black rock only constitues about 8-10% of the overall formation. It is just that it is concentrated in the black rock.

There is another location where the values are much lower and there is no concentration as in a vein its just kinda jumbled up.

I will be sending a sample to get assayed tomorrow, Monday. Will post results.

Again all comments and suggestions and even doubts are welcomed, hopefully your insights will point me in the right direction.

thanks all - NBM


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## manorman (Jul 18, 2010)

Any water or creek nearby? if so sample(the Creek) with A GOLD pan. or try to roast and crush some ore and pan it.sounds like it 
is a complex ore and will take some work getting the metals out of the ore.
you could even sell flat rate boxes(25-40 pounds) of this ore on E-Bay and make some big bucks.


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## Richard36 (Jul 23, 2010)

NBM, 
I would really like to see a photo of that black rock that you are trying to process.
I would also like to see a photo of the surrounding rock in which this vein system is in.
Chances are that I could tell you a few things about your ore just by looking at a photo of it and the surrounding rock in which the vein formed.
Aside from that, I would like to see a photo of material that contains values in those concentrations.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


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## rhwhite67 (Aug 11, 2010)

NBM
I do a lot of extraction work on precious metal ores. I would strongly suggest that you:
A. follow the advice given here these guys and gals are really great.
B. Have a good assay done by a top rated company that will give accurate results. I have had outstanding results with a company in Arizona called Advanced Analytical. They are very good and if you check the BLM list of quality Assayers they are listed as one of the better ones. 
C. Definitely keep the location very quite!!!!!!!!!!
Good luck!
Ron


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## dtectr (Aug 12, 2010)

Richard36 said:


> NBM,
> I would really like to see a photo of that black rock that you are trying to process.
> I would also like to see a photo of the surrounding rock in which this vein system is in.
> Chances are that I could tell you a few things about your ore just by looking at a photo of it and the surrounding rock in which the vein formed.
> ...


NBM
you have in rick "the rockman" a trifecta" - an active prospector, who sees it (all of it) from the ground, every day (most, not nearly all, assayists need to get out more); an assayist with many years experience, as well as an international reputation to uphold.

there are several thousand international members on this forum, so his rep is on the line with every post. Not a plug, just a word of wisdom from years of self-employment & gambles - some i won & some i did not. the advice of "multiple fire assays" seems wise. No 'all eggs in one basket" seems good advice.

just my dos centavos. still love to see pics.
good luck.


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## Richard36 (Aug 14, 2010)

dtectr said:


> NBM
> you have in rick "the rockman" a trifecta" - an active prospector, who sees it (all of it) from the ground, every day (most, not nearly all, assayists need to get out more); an assayist with many years experience, as well as an international reputation to uphold.
> 
> there are several thousand international members on this forum, so his rep is on the line with every post.



Thanks for the compliment.

Just doing what I like to do. 
Show me photos of what you have found, 
and I'll do my best to tell you all that I can decipher from looking at a photo of it.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


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## solarsmith (Mar 9, 2011)

your ore is worth over 100$ a lb 
get an assay 
your ore is concentrate value.
that means you can sell it to several companies that buy concentrates.
you can get 90% or better in payouts.
some one said your in colorado? so am I.
do not give away the location even if you own it. 
I would of course like to know if your one of my neighbors.
call me at 303 503 4799 thanks Bryan In Denver Colorado. My mine is In the mts...

congrats on your find


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