My First Refining!

Just completed my first gold refining! I started with a 4g 14k ring and a 2g 10k necklace. I inquarted with about 6g of sterling silver. When I was dissolving the base metals, I feel like it took about double the amount of nitric/h2o than it should have. I ended up doing it 5 times for a total of 110ml each of nitric/h20, with no more than a 15/15ml bath at a time. When I was calculating it, I should have only had to use 25/25 each so I was a bit confused. I just went till the solution was clear.

When I made the AR I did 12ml of HCL, a drop of sulfuric acid, and 2 ml of Nitric. The gold was dissolved in an instant, I was surprised and thought I used too much nitric. When I went to go precipitate the gold, I used a sprinkle of SMB and since I was afraid that I may have put in too much nitric it would all dissolve back, but luckily it didnt! I tested it with some stannous and it came back clean. So I waited for it to settle. Decanted off the solution and washed it in hot water, hot HCL, then hot water again. The powder came out looking amazing.

Unfortunately I only have 1 crucible at the moment which I used to melt down some copper so I think the gold may be tainted with a little of it from the dish, but I will be refining the button again in the future when I have a dish for gold only. So all in all I think it worked out great! Took about 8 hours from start to finish, dont think that's too bad for my first time. And now I am currently precipitating out my silver from the silver nitrate that was left behind with the copper I melted down earlier.

Any feedback and/or tips would be great! Thank you!!

Also I dont have a very precise scale at the moment but the scale I do have now weighed it to be 3g, which is what I was expecting! (3.166g to be precise)

You never forget your first that's for sure!! 8) 8) 8)

Jon

While the button may be a bit of an ugly, I find it beautiful, the powder does look great, too bad you melted the button in a dirty dish or it would not have been such an ugly duckling.

Well, I am sure that little ugly duckling will grow to become a beautiful specimen, as your skills, and your supply of melting dishes grow...

What makes your gold so beautiful to me, is not so much its shine, but it shows your hard work and dedication to learning these skills.

Does it really look that contaminated? I don't really mind that it is since I'll be refining it again soon, but I just have no idea what it should truly look like, since I've never seen a 24k nug in person. I do think it does look a bit dull on the shine though.

No, it is not really that ugly but is obviously not pure and thus missing the ugly little pipe that would indicate purity.

What's the ugly little pipe? You mean like those pour swirls?

For a first try that is not bad at all. The powders look really clean. A pipe is an indent that appears usually in very pure gold.

Put it to one side and wait till you've got a few more like it and refine them together. What you've done here (very well if I may say) is recovered your gold into one nice blob.

I would recommend a few more blobs to join it before refining it all together. The losses from refining a couple of grammes are the same as from 100g so be smart. 8) 8)

Look on my profile pic- that's what you are aiming for- the sheen not the quantity.

Edit Shark's profile pic is much clearer than mine so look back a post. 8) 8)

Jon

anachronism said:

Put it to one side and wait till you've got a few more like it and refine them together. What you've done here (very well if I may say) is recovered your gold into one nice blob.

I would recommend a few more blobs to join it before refining it all together. The losses from refining a couple of grammes are the same as from 100g so be smart. 8) 8)

Look on my profile pic- that's what you are aiming for- the sheen not the quantity.

Edit Shark's profile pic is much clearer than mine so look back a post. 8) 8)

Jon

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That's exactly what I was planning to do.
Thank you guys for your input!

Nice job. I wish I had been that successful the first time. But then again I was doing E waste, which is another cup of tea altogether. Did you use that same crucible for inquarting as well? I have yet to even try in quarting.

nickton said:

Nice job. I wish I had been that successful the first time. But then again I was doing E waste, which is another cup of tea altogether. Did you use that same crucible for inquarting as well? I have yet to even try in quarting.

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I'm pretty sure I did. Since then I've gotten more crucibles so that won't be happening again lol