# GF watchbands



## brjook (May 29, 2011)

I am looking at a good deal on a fair amount of GF watchbands and was wondering the best way to tackle this.AP for a few days or straight to Nitric or electrolisis.Haven't found much in here on watchbands so was asking for some advice.Any would be deeply appreciated


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## Claudie (May 29, 2011)

Is this the lot you are asking about processing? http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-Watch-Bands-Gold-Filled-Speidel-Wristwatch-Parts-/310321054667?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item48409383cb


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## Irons (May 29, 2011)

"..at least one is Gold filled."

:mrgreen:


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## brjook (May 29, 2011)

No sorry the lot i was talking about was at a flea market the ones i saw said GF and they said they had a lot more and was wondering what it took to refine them.


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## Harold_V (May 29, 2011)

brjook said:


> No sorry the lot i was talking about was at a flea market the ones i saw said GF and they said they had a lot more and was wondering what it took to refine them.


I used to strip them with an electrical cyanide cell. Cathode was a sheet of 300 series stainless. Bands were placed in a non-conductive basket that was suspended about an inch from the cathode. Stripped metal, consisting of copper, gold and silver, formed a solid coating on the stainless, which was removable by scraping with a razor. Bands were submersed almost to the top, where I'd use a piece of titanium as an electrical connector. It was desirable for the titanium to not be submersed. It was simply placed on top of the bands, which were dumped and reloaded a few times to insure that all gold was exposed and stripped. Not a fast way to recover the values, but trouble free, and not labor intensive. 

Harold


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## qst42know (May 29, 2011)

Far superior to digesting all in AR and using copper based GF to cement. It works but the resulting iron nickel syrup is truely a pain to wash out of the cemented values. It is hard not to lose some in the dark inky blue solution.


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## brjook (May 30, 2011)

Thanks Harold for the info but i don't have access to a cyanid solution so is there any other way to do this .The time and labor is not a point just the finished product is


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## Harold_V (May 30, 2011)

There's one advantage to processing watch bands that is often overlooked. The vast majority of their construction is stainless steel, which is not dissolved by nitric. You may be able to process by a nitric digest, which will eliminate non-ferrous materials, leaving the gold behind. Problem then is to separate the gold from the stainless. It will be trapped in all kinds of ways, so that may not be as easy is it sounds. 

By applying AR carefully, you may be able to reduce the amount of stainless that remains with the values. Less than would be required to dissolve everything is applied. Values dissolve, then then they are cemented on the stainless, dissolving the stainless in the process. When no values are detected by testing with stannous chloride, the solution is siphoned and the process repeated. When just traces of stainless remain, everything is dissolved and processed for recovery of values. It requires patience, due to the slowed recovery of values as the stainless diminishes in volume. By this process, the vast majority of contamination is removed, yielding a better quality of gold, and from a reduced volume of solution. 

Alternately, you can pick off the gold filled pieces, discarding the stainless. That works perfectly well, but you must look at your time as having no value. Fine for the hobby refiner, but certainly a losing proposition for the guy that values his time. Watch bands tend to be a rather poor source of gold (but still worth processing).

Should you make a decision to process by acid, make damned sure you incinerate the watch bands. You'll come to understand they are filthy---loaded with soap scum and body oils. 

Harold


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## goldenchild (May 30, 2011)

Harold_V said:


> Watch bands tend to be a rather poor source of gold (but still worth processing).
> 
> Should you make a decision to process by acid, make damned sure you incinerate the watch bands. You'll come to understand they are filthy---loaded with soap scum and body oils.
> 
> Harold



I suppose watchbands being a poor source of gold is relative to how much gold one recovers. Watchbands happen to be my favorite source of gold after karated. I would go as far as to say they are my bread and butter. I simply pluck the caps and digest in nitric leaving behind the foils. You will save gallons of nitric plucking caps opposed to putting the bands in nitric straight away. 

Harold is 110% correct about incineration. Out of the hundreds of pounds of watchbands that I have scrapped over the years, only a few pounds were brand new. The rest had soap scum, body oils, various dirts and cruds and... gulp... hair :-X Make sure to wear gloves and a mask when plucking the caps and incinerate well. If not you will have a nasty molasses like gook clogging your filters which you will have to incinerate anyhow or trail along in the following processes.

An H2SO4 cell may also be an option.


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## brjook (May 30, 2011)

You guys are the Bomb and Harold your thr Guru of the site .What you say is the gospel.Golden what do you mean when you say pluck the tops.Will the GF come off the substate or you are talking about the pins and maybe springs?
Hey i am takeing every word you all say to heart and again deeply appreciat all of your time and advice.


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## samuel-a (May 30, 2011)

brjook said:


> Will the GF come off the substate or you are talking about the pins and maybe springs?



The caps are easily plucked out with little force out of watch bands.
The smaller they are, the herder it becomes.


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## goldenchild (May 30, 2011)

samuel-a said:


> brjook said:
> 
> 
> > Will the GF come off the substate or you are talking about the pins and maybe springs?
> ...



Yes. Literally pry them off the band. A needle nose pliar works great for me. Here is a little 140 gram bag.







Be aware however that there are bands that contain silver and I'm not talkin' plated. These bands contain solid sterling silver. They are pretty rare though. Both the bottom and top caps are made of sterling silver. I can always spot them right away. They always seem to have a rose gold like hugh and of the same design. And there are some super rare ones that are 100% sterling except for those tiny springs used for expansion. I have only ever found three of these and they were in the same batch. They yeiled about an ounce of sterling each. Oh how I wish I would have taken pictures.
Below is not a silver bearing band but shares the same design. 






While writing this I remember that I _have_ found one other band that did not share this design. So you're probably wondering now how will I ever know which are silver and which aren't? :lol: Dont go scratch testing every band. The dead give away will be that the caps are super soft when trying to pry them off. It will be like lead compared to the hard stainless/aluminum caps.


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## samuel-a (May 31, 2011)

goldenchild said:


> Be aware however that there are bands that contain silver and I'm not talkin' plated. These bands contain solid sterling silver. They are pretty rare though. Both the bottom and top caps are made of sterling silver. I can always spot them right away. They always seem to have a rose gold like hugh and of the same design. And there are some super rare ones that are 100% sterling except for those tiny springs used for expansion. I have only ever found three of these and they were in the same batch. They yeiled about an ounce of sterling each. Oh how I wish I would have taken pictures.
> Below is not a silver bearing band but shares the same design.



On my very first batch of GF band cap i had 2 or 3 of those, yes, they ware rose colored with the same designe you show here.
Needles to say how surprised i was to find almost an ounce of silver out of that first batch...


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## goldenchild (May 31, 2011)

samuel-a said:


> On my very first batch of GF band cap i had 2 or 3 of those, yes, they ware rose colored with the same designe you show here.
> Needles to say how surprised i was to find almost an ounce of silver out of that first batch...



You saying this sparked another thought. A hard lesson learned in fact. If you _do_ find any of these bands... process them SEPARATELY! If you leave them in with the other caps you will create a very big head ache for yourself. What will happen is the silver will dissolve and immediately cement out. This will go on until all base metals are dissolved. Needless to say this wastes much more nitric than you would have calculated for a non silver bearing batch. I still get caught with this sometimes on other batches of GF scrap where silver is undetectable. Another good reason to keep your digestion batches small.


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## samuel-a (May 31, 2011)

Good acid saving advice Mario.

I was (and still am) fortunate enough to source nitric acid for 5.44$ a gallon, so this practically eliminate any problems relates to excess usage.


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## brjook (May 31, 2011)

Again thank you all for your advice and input.It has helped me alot.So your getting nitric at 5.44 a gallon what if i paid you double and the shipping couldya help me out?


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## samuel-a (May 31, 2011)

brjook said:


> what if i paid you double and the shipping couldya help me out?



I would if i could.
But i'm not located in the US.


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## brjook (Jun 12, 2011)

On the bands they say 12k GF .Does this mean the caps are solid 12k or just a thick coating on them.When i dissolve in nitric there is alot of reaction and red smoke.I figured if they where 12k they would react slower and as they dissolved all that was left was a thin film of gold.Any advice before i make a mistake and lose alot of gold.


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## qst42know (Jun 12, 2011)

12k GF means "1/20th of the original weight is 12k", just the tops on some, all on the outside surface, and subject to all the wear losses.

If the "gold filled" karat and fraction are not specified it is assumed to be 1/20th 10k.


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## brjook (Jun 12, 2011)

Is that 1/20th of the weight of the caps or the whole watch band?


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## qst42know (Jun 12, 2011)

That depends on the band.


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## samuel-a (Jun 12, 2011)

brjook said:


> Is that 1/20th of the weight of the caps or the whole watch band?



just the caps.

the rest of the band is SS or sterling and is also marked that way usually.


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## brjook (Jul 4, 2011)

I have been stripping some GF watchbands in a sulfuric cell and it works great.When i have a GF stainless mesh band it seems to keep a high amperage and along time to strip.Does the cell also strip of the stainless and comtaminate my gold?


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 4, 2011)

Is the solution turning green? This can happen if the stainless contains a lot of nickel. Once the dissolved nickel reaches a certain level, the sulfuric can stop working efficiently.


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## brjook (Jul 4, 2011)

Can't tell if it is green or not the solution is black.I also noticed that the high amp long time peices are white gold and they use nickle to make white gold right.So in the long run when i get ready to process my gold powder what do i have look out for as far as nickle is concerned?


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 4, 2011)

brjook said:


> Can't tell if it is green or not the solution is black.I also noticed that the high amp long time peices are white gold and they use nickle to make white gold right.So in the long run when i get ready to process my gold powder what do i have look out for as far as nickle is concerned?


Nothing, really, but normal purification of the gold is necessary, whether it contains nickel or not.


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## qst42know (Jul 4, 2011)

Be sure to test for palladium from white gold filled.


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## Nickpearl (Aug 5, 2011)

I've recently joined and am learning tons.
One lesson: I used nitric to dissolve gold filled and had some of the caps (bottom and top) from the GF watch bands. Now I have stainless (bright tiny sparkles) in with my brown powder. Any ideas to get the stainless out?

As a note, from clean GF I extracted .5g AU from 35g of material. It tested better than 14K (at 18K solution (test kit) the streaks slowly faded but retained some form). I also extracted .25 grams AU from 135g of gold plated contacts. 

Any comments on this post would be helpful.
Thanks. :roll:


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## Harold_V (Aug 5, 2011)

Nickpearl said:


> I've recently joined and am learning tons.
> One lesson: I used nitric to dissolve gold filled and had some of the caps (bottom and top) from the GF watch bands. Now I have stainless (bright tiny sparkles) in with my brown powder. Any ideas to get the stainless out?


That's not making a lot of sense. Nitric doesn't dissolve stainless, so unless you've done something beyond what you've said, there shouldn't be any particles present. Stainless would have retained its original form. I guess my first question is, did you dissolve the resulting gold, filter and precipitate, or are you speaking of the gold that resulted from dissolving the base metals, with no further treatment? Also, consider that it's possible you have dissolved something that is rhodium plated, which would result in the tiny particles you speak of. 

Typically, you can look upon the first reaction (dissolving the base metals) as just a recovery procedure. While it's true that anything you do to increase the gold content can be looked upon as a form of refining, it's wise to make a distinction, so you understand that your work is not finished. Said another way, one recovers the values by various means, which are then further processed to enhance quality. 

Assuming you haven't digested the recovered gold, the traces of impurities will be chiefly left behind when you do. They may go in to solution, but selective precipitation will recover the values, leaving behind the contaminants. That's assuming you use a selective precipitant. The resulting gold powder is then washed properly, to remove contaminants that are dragged down with the gold. To further purify the gold, raising quality to 9995 or better, the gold powder is then dissolved once again, and re-precipitated. 

You may achieve some degree of success washing the material in question in dilute sulfuric, heated. In any event, a proper refining should eliminate the contaminants of which you speak. 

Harold


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## goldenchild (Aug 5, 2011)

I bet it's rhodium plating. If those sparkles are still there after digesting the gold foils then it is rhodium. Or something non metallic.


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## Harold_V (Aug 6, 2011)

goldenchild said:


> Or something non metallic.


One of the things I did, routinely, when I processed gold filled objects, was to eliminate base metals, then gather all of the remaining solids in a filter. They were then *incinerated*, a process that is chiefly ignored by the masses. There was method in my madness, and your comment helps cover my point. 

Beyond eliminating non-metallic contaminants, incineration was useful in converting tin to an oxide. It wasn't uncommon to find gold filled objects that contained traces of soft solder. After incineration, the lot was screened, with a magnet used to eliminate any traces of magnetic materials, then the sifted solids were given a wash in hot HCl. A boil, actually. After proper rinsing, the solids were then dissolved in AR. This yields an incredibly clean solution that filters quite well. But then, as is usual, this is likely to fall on deaf ears once again. 

Harold


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## Nickpearl (Sep 25, 2011)

Thank you Harold and Goldenrod.
Your comments are right on.
I did filter the nitric solution, rinsed but mostly with water, then dissolved in AR.
I used the Hoke method of boiling down, adding some sulfuric, boiling down more and adding HCl, then rinsing (mostly decanting) until the final filter step. 
The powder I've ended up with ranged from dark to lighter.
Here's what I found - tell me how I'm doing...
1. Definite final wash of the powder in HCL, heated. Rinse.
2. I do not know how to incinerate (filters or powder or anything) and all that powder stuck in filters was annoying, so this is what I now do.
After all is said and done, I pour the rinsed powder into a flat glass tray. I let it dry. I scrape it off into a melting tray (silica) with a bit of Borax and melt. Wow, did I get pretty gold.

Lastly, and this is my fault, I've used both processes to get powder - Nitric alone on gold-filled items (no AR) and those lots with AR.
Both only test on my acid stone at 14K to 18K. 
I will next take your advice and re- AR a gram or two of my little buttons to try and improve the purity.

Thanks much again!
Nick


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## Harold_V (Sep 26, 2011)

Nickpearl said:


> I used the Hoke method of boiling down,


Uhhh---Hoke does not have a method of "boiling down", and you should immediately stop using that term. It is a huge mistake and taken literally by those that don't understand what they are doing. One does *NOT* boil down. One *evaporates*. They are not the same thing. 
I hope you accept this in the spirit in which it is offered. I fully expect you, and all other readers, to use PROPER terminology when posting---to prevent stupid things from being promoted. 



> Here's what I found - tell me how I'm doing...
> 1. Definite final wash of the powder in HCL, heated. Rinse.


If you washed only once, that's not adequate. Also, if your objective is high purity, gold should be re-refined. It becomes obvious why when you start doing so. 



> 2. I do not know how to incinerate (filters or powder or anything) and all that powder stuck in filters was annoying,


What you need to do is read more. This subject has been well discussed on the forum. 

Why you, or anyone, uses a filter once gold has been precipitated is something I don't understand. It's not necessary, and it creates more work, plus ties up a small percentage of the gold. Once you precipitate your gold, it has no reason to leave the vessel (I always used beakers) until it was time to either weigh, for settlement, or to melt. If you're adding any steps, you're wasting time, all for no gain. 



> so this is what I now do.
> After all is said and done, I pour the rinsed powder into a flat glass tray. I let it dry. I scrape it off into a melting tray (silica) with a bit of Borax and melt. Wow, did I get pretty gold.


After pouring off the rinse water, leave the gold in the beaker, which is heated at a low heat until all the remaining water has been expelled. During that process, you should shake it around a little to prevent the powder from sticking. Heat slowly, to prevent steam explosions, which lead to lost gold. Once dry, elevate heat, to expel residual acid (yeah, I know--you rinsed it out. Well, friend, you didn't. Do as I say and you'll see evidence I'm right). 

Wise people do NOT use free borax when melting gold powder. For starters, it's not necessary, plus it is the source of lost gold. If you melt gold mixed with borax, a small percentage will remain in the slag, and it's not easy to recover. Instead, pour your gold powder to a dish that has been properly seasoned and coated lightly with borax. Heat it carefully, so you don't blow any of the gold out of the dish. Once it crusts over (with molten gold) you can increase heat. When it has all melted, it does no harm to sprinkle a few grains of borax on the molten button, which will help absorb oxidized contaminants. If you melt under a full flux cover, contaminants will not oxidize, and will not be removed by the flux. The button may look good, but it is still contaminated. 

If, when you get your gold molten, you see a hazy surface, originating from the center of you button and moving towards the edges, that's a sure sign your gold is not pure. Pure gold will melt without a haze, and has a greenish yellow luminescence, with a bright surface. It will not discolor the flux, aside from, maybe, leaving behind traces of pink through purple---which is nothing more than colloidal gold. If the flux in your dish, after melting, has any color beyond that which has been described, your gold is NOT pure. 



> Lastly, and this is my fault, I've used both processes to get powder - Nitric alone on gold-filled items (no AR) and those lots with AR.
> Both only test on my acid stone at 14K to 18K.


Ok, here's something for you to ponder. A touch stone isn't really well suited to judge gold purity, not for refined gold. You're looking for such small percentages that it simply can't make the distinction. 

Depending on your objective, it is a mistake to process by nitric alone, especially gold filled objects. They have the potential to contain tin and lead, along with the alloying elements. Unless you give the resulting gold a hard, prolonged boil, you are not likely to remove the alloying elements to any meaningful degree, and if they're 14k or greater, maybe not at all. Such material should be boiled hard in nitric, then given a rinse to separate the base metal solution from the solids. With the solids in a filter, incineration is a really good idea. That can be accomplished in an old stainless fry pan, heated from below with a gas burner. Once fully incinerated, the solids are then given a boil in HCl, which eliminates tin (commonly found in gold filled materials). That makes the resulting gold chloride solution easier to filter, and helps tremendously with quality. After rinsing well, the material is then digested in the solvent of your choosing (AR, for example).

I do not endorse, and, in fact, discourage, any direct processing in AR. Base metals should always be removed first. If you don't do so, you risk loss by cementation, plus the resulting gold is typically very dirty. It's a judgment call---didn't say it doesn't work--it does. It's just not a good idea. 

Read Hoke. 

Harold


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## Nickpearl (Oct 20, 2011)

Harold, I'm getting there. I'll take this 2.6g from 77.7 gf batch and wash in hcl to clean. 
Later, I'll also post a pic from a previous batch where I ended up with lot's of silvery mud in the nitric stage.
I did re-AR 3.1g of previous AR'd Au and ended up with 2.5g of nicer gold with waste consisting of a tan-colored powder.
I also got .3g Au from a couple boxes of gold-rimmed wine glasses.
I trust I'm on a role, and yes, I re-read Hoke, the handbook and this site......
Comments?


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## Nickpearl (Oct 20, 2011)

Harold?
Where on this post can I find instructions on incineration.
I have plenty of these chips (pic) and plenty of filters i need to reclaim the gold from.
Thanks for you help.
Nick


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## Nickpearl (Oct 20, 2011)

This is the powder I melted to the 2.6g Au two posts ago.......


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## Barren Realms 007 (Oct 20, 2011)

That is a tough looking button, I would say there are some impurities in there. I'm a little concerned when you said some of the trash had a tan colored powder, there might have been value in this.

The flat packs you can incinerates to temps above 700 F and run your tourch over the material till there is no more glowing of embers from the material, then crush up the material to a fine powder and run in your favorite process.

The powder looks pretty good.


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## Nickpearl (Oct 20, 2011)

Thank you, Barron.
I saved the filter with the tanish-residue from AR-ing the karated gold. I'll look at it again.
Thanks for the incineration tip.
The button does I think have some roughness to it, not sure why. I have heard re-AR'ing even "pure" gold is suggested - I'm sure I will since I have so much fun doing it.
Again, thanks!


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## Harold_V (Oct 21, 2011)

Barren covered incineration pretty well. I used to use an old stainless fry pan, heated from below, then adding heat from a large torch at the end. Worked for me, although a little labor intensive. Adequate for small amounts, for sure. 

I agree with Barren's comments----the gold doesn't look pure, although quite close. Surface is slightly discolored (assuming color balance is right with my monitor) and the less than shiny finish speaks volumes. When gold has a frosty appearance, it's usually because of traces of base metals. 

Lead can be a problem. Make sure you use a few drops of sulfuric acid in the final stages, before filtration. 

Also, washing is best accomplished in repeated cycles, with an ammonium hydroxide wash included. It will remove traces of silver chloride that may not, otherwise, get removed. 

Looking good, so don't get down over these comments. It won't be long until you're producing high quality gold. 

Harold


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## Nickpearl (Oct 22, 2011)

Thanks, Harold, you and Barron's comments are well appreciated.
A question on ammonia.
How much household ammonia do I use to wash?

Thus far, after AR, I decant with water several times.
Then I HCL
Rinse some more.
I would assume I drop in as much ammonia in one of these washes as I did with HCL (in my case, for the 2.6g button, I used maybe 2-3 ml).

After the ammonia wash, I would expect to rinse repeatedly (under heating pad heat), stirring. By then, of course, the gold is starting to clump.
~~ Do I then crush the clumps to make sure it's rinsed or just stir?~~

Lastly, should my last two rinses be with distilled water?

Again, thanks, and although I'm not sure where you live, I live in Minnesota and it's getting cold. I'm thinking of traveling to a friend's in Arizona and rent a jackass and a sledgehammer to see if I can find gold near Wickenburg (kinda joking, kinda not).


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## Harold_V (Oct 23, 2011)

Nickpearl said:


> How much household ammonia do I use to wash?
> 
> Thus far, after AR, I decant with water several times. Then I HCL
> Rinse some more.
> I would assume I drop in as much ammonia in one of these washes as I did with HCL (in my case, for the 2.6g button, I used maybe 2-3 ml).


The amount isn't critical. I used to cover the preciptated gold, then heat. 



> After the ammonia wash, I would expect to rinse repeatedly (under heating pad heat), stirring. By then, of course, the gold is starting to clump.
> ~~ Do I then crush the clumps to make sure it's rinsed or just stir?~~


I avoided contact with the gold, but I also kept the vessel covered with a watch glass, and boiled each operation. If you mess with the gold much, you start scratching the beaker, which renders it virtually useless for future precipitation. The brisk boiling will flush the cemented gold of dissolved solids adequately, especially if you have double refined. If you have, there's precious little to be removed, anyway. It should have all be left behind in the barren solution. 

By the way, my ammonium hydroxide wash came in the middle of the two HCl wash/rinse cycles. Seemed to work for me, and I could often see the results of the ammonium wash. 



> Lastly, should my last two rinses be with distilled water?


Certainly does no harm---but I used only tap water for gold refining. I never found it to be a problem, and I achieved a level of quality that was more than acceptable. I do NOT claim to have achieved 4n's, however, but I exceeded 9995 routinely. You can tell if your gold is pure--it forms no oxide skin when melted, and cools bright. Appearance is NOT improved by pickling. 

Cold, here, isn't an issue, but we sure as hell get our share of rain (cool and damp). That's the way it is in the pacific north wet. :lol: 

Harold


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## Nickpearl (Nov 6, 2011)

Not sure what happened here. I precipitated using SMB and although I'm getting some lighter brown on the bottom of the beaker, I have this floating red concentration around the top. Any ideas what this may be? I'm sure I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned.
Thanks,
Nick


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## butcher (Nov 6, 2011)

I would try stirring it.


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## Palladium (Nov 6, 2011)

Some colloidal gold suspensions can be red???


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## Harold_V (Nov 7, 2011)

Stannous chloride is your friend. Test the solution. If you get no reaction with testing solution known to be good, discard the brown solution. I don't claim to know what it is, but if it doesn't test positive, does it matter?

That it has stratified, in my opinion, rules out any values. I do not recall ever seeing a solution of precious metals stratifying. 

Harold


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## Nickpearl (Nov 7, 2011)

Thanks, all.
I'll stir and check what did drop at the bottom. 

Now another issue. I have made two batches of Stannous per Lazersteve's formula. I snipped 2 grams of tin I got at the hardware store and used 40 mg of HCL. I got the fizzing, the remaining tin on the bottom and the yellow liquid.
When I used a q-tip to put a couple drops of solution I knew to contain gold on a napkin, then another q-tip to touch with Stannous, I got nothing.
Would I need to buy tin powder to make this work?


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## niteliteone (Nov 7, 2011)

Are you sure the hardware tin was "pure tin" :?: 
Whenever I make stannous it is always a clear liquid. I use 30 ml HCL and 2 grams of 95/5 tin solder.
I would be very suspicious of the yellow collor of your solution.
Tom C.


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## Harold_V (Nov 7, 2011)

Testing solution made from crystals may have a hint of yellow, so that, alone, isn't a sign of a bad solution. If the solution is opaque and pale yellow, it may not work properly.

A standard gold solution should be at hand, always. That's the way one tests stannous chloride. If you have no means to test your stannous, it's not a great deal better than having no stannous chloride. 

Harold


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## Palladium (Nov 8, 2011)

Excess oxidizer ( Nitric, H2O2, cl ) in your gold solution will cause the test not to work.


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## Harold_V (Nov 8, 2011)

brjook said:


> Is that 1/20th of the weight of the caps or the whole watch band?


Generally, caps only, and don't forget that's where the wear occurs, so they won't yield as they're represented. 

Some bands, such as those for women's watches, are gold filled everywhere aside for the internal mechanism (springs). 

Harold


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## goldenchild (Jan 18, 2012)

I found a silver watchband and I thought of this post. As you can see it has a copper tone to give a rose gold appearance. You can also see the silver tarnishing through where there is wear. Just looking at it I believe this is NOT a 100% silver band. I'll post pics if it turns out to be an all silver band.


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## Claudie (Jan 18, 2012)

What does the inscription read?


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## goldenchild (Jan 18, 2012)

"KREISLER
GOLD CONT 025 TOP
???? BOTTOM" 

Unfortunately the one word is worn on both sides :x


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## Claudie (Jan 18, 2012)

Gold Content.025, is Kreisler's 1/20 12K gold-filled mark. I'm not sure about Silver.


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## lazersteve (Feb 10, 2012)

brjook said:


> Is that 1/20th of the weight of the caps or the whole watch band?



As Harold already stated the caps are what is actually gold filled. I'd like to add that the majority of the single sided bands (only tops GF are capped) I checked from a very large cross section of an 80 pound batch contained 25-27% gold filled caps by weight for both mens and womens varieties. Stated another way :

Total weight of bands 1000 grams:
Total weight of GF caps after removal: 250-270 grams
Estimated maximum gold yield for 250 grams of 1/20 12kt tops for brand new bands and 100% refining returns: 250g x 1/20 x 12/24 = 250 x 0.05 x 0.5 = 6.25g

Be aware that some bands that appear gold plated or filled are actually enamel or lacquer coated. These are commonly marked CHINA and not 1/20 12k GF. Look for the GF hallmark on either end of the band on the bottom side or end of the band near the watch. This lacquer layer can be scratched off and will flake in some cases when it is heavily worn or tested with acid.

Steve


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## nickvc (Feb 10, 2012)

Steve I think in your calculation you meant to say maximum not minimum amount of gold likely to be recovered.
In my experience gold filled goods rarely come anywhere near what the marked content should be and I think that is mainly due to the fact that even the new never worn items have more work done on the facing gold surface than on the hidden base metals, once the stamping or forming operation is completed and the item is constructed the item will go for finishing / polishing and that will only be on the gold surface. I dismantled a few new never worn watch bands and assayed the gold filled tops and they were below what the stamp said by some margin and if worn and of some age the assay will be even less.
A personal view but if buying old worn gold filled I'd not want to pay more than 50% of the marked content and new still packaged items 70%.


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## lazersteve (Feb 10, 2012)

You are correct, thanks for catching that.

Corrected.

Steve


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## goldenchild (Feb 25, 2012)

So I took the watchband apart and it turns out it _is_ on of the rare "100%" silver bands. The part that the caps lay on was very soft and shiney so I decided to test it. I knew right away from the scratch that it was silver because of how soft it was and the bright white scratch. So the take away from this... double and triple check all your scrap.





































Bonus Pic!!!


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