# 4k gold?



## zmoney8787 (Dec 16, 2012)

I have a chain that is stamped 4k. Placed a link into some hcl + cl and the clipped part stays a gold color and the outside turned black. What do you think? Non magnetic, cut a link off and it looks gold throughout.


----------



## butcher (Dec 16, 2012)

never heard of 4K, maybe it is 14k and did not get stamped well?

Can you do a scratch test on a stone, an ceramic CPU would work for the stone, scratch a mark from the suspected 4K item on the stone, scratch a mark next to it with a 14K wedding ring put a drop of acid on each mark aqua regia, HCl/NaClO (bleach), or just nitric acid, see which scratch is attacked first or dissolves first, if the dissolve or react about the same it is most likely 14k, if it dissolves before the 14K scratch it is lower than 14K.


----------



## zmoney8787 (Dec 16, 2012)

Thank you. Edit NaClO for Cl. I meant clorox. I ordered 5lbs of NaNO3 from duda diesel, my nitric ran out. If I clip the links in quarters and try to dissolve with nitric then decant and move to AR? I haven't made a furnace yet so I can't pour shots. Just wondering, never tried any jewelry before. Thanks.


----------



## butcher (Dec 17, 2012)

If it is 4K it will dissolve in nitric acid, leaving gold powders, if is higher than 6K it will need to be in-quartered with silver first.

Home made nitric acid will contain some soluble sulfate salts, it is not good to use to dissolve silver, as silver sulfate can form, but you can distill the homemade nitric to get a more pure nitric acid and use it to dissolve silver.

If this is your first maybe save the chain until you have read more of Hokes book, and then use the chain for getting acquainted with what she teaches in her book.

To start with you do not need a furnace a mapp gas hand held torch and a melting dish you can do a lot of the melting in.


----------



## zmoney8787 (Dec 17, 2012)

So I just burned out a whole can of mapp gas on these links and they barely changed composition. Granted, I did use cast iron. I'm sure that dissipated quite a bit of my heat. Why is it that I must inquart with 6k? Will AR get the job done? If I leave it sit a week or so? I'm going to dive back into hokes book.


----------



## qst42know (Dec 17, 2012)

*Never* use cast iron to melt in or you'll have far more troubles to deal with.


----------



## butcher (Dec 18, 2012)

You are lucky you did not solder the gold to the cast iron.

Buy a couple of melting dishes from laser Steve's web site, read up some more and save your gold until you get a little better idea how to process it without losing it.

http://goldrecovery.us/forum_search.asp


----------



## zmoney8787 (Dec 19, 2012)

Yeah, the melting dishes from lazersteves website should be arriving tomorrow. Along with a stir rod. I made some new nitric so they are fizzling in some of that for now.


----------

