# Gold/sand ratio for smelting



## Bubbanegly (Jan 6, 2013)

I have concentrate that was dry panned ,then wet panned and cleaned as much as I could. This is river gold with reduced density and that means that some of it is heavier, lighter ,and the same weight as the sand. Get to my question.... I ended up with a cons. that is at least 70% gold. and 30 % sand . The gold nuggets are .1 mm and smaller . Is this clean enough to smelt into an ingot using the borax method????


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## butcher (Jan 7, 2013)

Gold is never lighter or the same weight as sand, gold no matter how small will have a density very much heavier.

Pure gold has a density of 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter.

Placer gold density can range from 15 to 19 grams per cubic centimeter.

Black sand hematite or magnetite is around 5g/cm3.

Lead has a density of 11.3 g/cm3


It sounds like you have gotten rich on fools gold, pyrite.

Pyrite has a density of around 4 to 5grams per cubic centimeter.


My suggestion get some BB size pieces of lead, put them in the your gold pan, say three of them, now add your sand gravel rocks mud and your gold, pan this off, when you get to the bottom you will see your lead and gold in the black sand, pan off the black sand you will be left with three pieces of lead and your gold, practice this into a big tub of water just incase you are not skilled in the art of panning this way you will not loose your lead, if your gold pans off before your lead it is not gold it is just pyrite fools gold.

Very seldom will fine gold float, clean your pan of oils, a drop of dish soap to your water will help if this very rare problem occurs, gold is normally too heavy to float, pyrite will float out of your pan very easily.

Most all new miners get rich on fools gold before they learn what real gold is, once they learn they can easily tell the difference, and these miners pay no attention to dumping that yellow gold looking material out of their pan back into the river, they only want what is left in there pan after everything else lighter than lead is dumped out of the pan.


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## etack (Jan 7, 2013)

This fellers not a fan of you calling his gold fools gold. :lol: :lol: Or mica

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=16806

Eric


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## jeneje (Jan 7, 2013)

etack said:


> This fellers not a fan of you calling his gold fools gold. :lol: :lol: Or mica
> 
> http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=16806
> 
> Eric


I have been there done that!! :lol: :mrgreen: 
Ken

edited; I wonder if this guy knows that smelting river cons could and may have mercury in them...ummmmmmmm not a good ideal! :roll:


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## solarsmith (Jan 8, 2013)

direct smelt.... just send it to an asseyer and ask for the button back
unless you have a lot of it.. if so looks like its time to melt and poor some dore bars.. there are a few people on the forum Im sure that can give details on how to do that.....Bryan in denver colorado dont forget to vent your gases..


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## Ali (Jan 15, 2013)

direct smelting is a viable option both in the laboratory and in field trials. By using the right combination of borax, soda ash and silica, gold bearing black sands were smelted with relatively high recoveries. Field tests for recovery via amalgamation, heating and smelting gave an average recovery of about 88% while figures for direct smelting are above 99%. In addition, it takes a shorter time to execute.


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