Getting gold off gold-filled or the like?

I have an electronic gold tester, an RS Mizar ET18. It has five readings: Non-gold, flash gold, >10K >14K and >18K. Flash gold is the thinest gold plate, and so I'm thinking the others are either thicker gold plate or something like filled gold. I am just taking a guess. I'm talking about costume jewelry Much of the unmarked goldtone kind registers as Flash gold, 10K or better.

I have some of the >10K now in a container that just has 9 parts 30% vinegar to 1 part sea salt. I will be using a little heat from a hot plate. Just starting out so any advice is welcome. I just want to collect the gold and dry it out and put it in a vial as my first accomplishment.

I let it sit for 3 days and now there is just silvertone left and no gold flakes. It seems the gold has melted into the liquid. Is there an easy way to precipitate it?

I asked the first part over in techniques and it didn't get a response after 3 days. Thought I would ask it here.

I have an electronic gold tester, an RS Mizar ET18. It has five readings: Non-gold, flash gold, >10K >14K and >18K. Flash gold is the thinest gold plate, and so I'm thinking the others are either thicker gold plate or something like filled gold. I am just taking a guess. I'm talking about costume jewelry Much of the unmarked goldtone kind registers as Flash gold, 10K or better.

I have some of the >10K now in a container that just has 9 parts 30% vinegar to 1 part sea salt. I will be using a little heat from a hot plate. Just starting out so any advice is welcome. I just want to collect the gold and dry it out and put it in a vial as my first accomplishment.

I let it sit for 3 days and now there is just silvertone left and no gold flakes. It seems the gold has melted into the liquid. Is there an easy way to precipitate it? I never had to add more heat, it was never heated.

Also, what kind of protection should I use from the fumes? It's in a large shack type building in my backyard but I notice the smell kind of stays with you for a while.

Please keep all your posts on a particular subject in the same thread. I've merged your other post into this thread. If you feel your thread would be better in a different section of the forum, just send me a PM and I'll be happy to move it.

There are several ways to reclaim gold from gold filled or gold plate.

• You can dissolve the base metals away, leaving the outer gold intact.
• You can dissolve the gold from the outside, leaving the base metals more or less intact.
• You can dissolve everything, drop the gold from the very dirty solution, then re-refine the gold to clean it up.

At this point, you may have dissolved some of your base metal and/or some of your gold. Your gold may have dissolved, then cemented back out on the base metals. Some of your base metals may have dissolved, then cemented back out on your gold. Maybe a combination.

How much material have you started processing?

Dave

Thanks.

It was about four cubic inches of jewelry, with the usual bends and hollow spaces.

What if I just wanted to flake the gold off? I was thinking this was going to be like ram board fingers. Would it have just been doable with a weaker solution vinegar? I notice crunching up the jewelry with a big pliers sometimes does it partially.

Hmmm... I've never worked by cubic inches. I weigh what I'm going to process. You should probably do the same. It will allow you to calculate your yields.

At this point, you have a classic mess (no offense intended). If it were mine, I would proceed to dissolve everything, then drop whatever gold there may be from the dirty solution. It's not an easy way, but it's a way.

Dave

Edit, this reply was written about the material you already started, not to your new material.

Why do you want to use vinegar?

FrugalRefiner said:

Hmmm... I've never worked by cubic inches. I weigh what I'm going to process. You should probably do the same. It will allow you to calculate your yields.

At this point, you have a classic mess (no offense intended). If it were mine, I would proceed to dissolve everything, then drop whatever gold there may be from the dirty solution. It's not an easy way, but it's a way.

Dave

Edit, this reply was written about the material you already started, not to your new material.

Why do you want to use vinegar?

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It is a mess. And, it must be my first whiff of this kind of heavy solution as it seemed to do something
beyond clear my sinuses. I just got a NaSum M201 face gas mask but haven't set it up yet.

I'm using vinegar because I didn't want to get too deep into this. I don't have any of the other chemicals around.

Can the gold be dropped now?

I have a lot more of the material I can add. I also have next to this large jar another one with the same mixture and 3% vinegar.

Can this material be covered once the process is done, that is, there is no more gold-plate or other metals in the container?

goldanalog, slow down and take a breath.

Asking so many questions so fast makes it difficult to give you answers.

Put your current mess aside somewhere safe, away from anyone, animals, etc. Cover it loosely so any gasses can escape. Keep it away from any metals as the fumes will quickly corrode them. If you smell fumes, you're damaging your lungs, and endangering those around you. We can't give you a quick answer to all your questions. See Why Can't I Ask a Simple Question and get a Simple Answer?

You need to spend some time studying here. Everything you are asking has been covered here many times. I'll use one example.

You say you are using vinegar because you "didn't want to get too deep into this". But combining vinegar and salt as you've done will create HCl, which you can probably buy cheaper than the vinegar and salt you're using. You'll learn this as you study because it's been discussed many times. I can buy a gallon of 32% HCl at my local Menards hardware store for around $4.00. Then I don't have any unneeded acetate anions in my solution, or any of the acetate salts they will create with the base metals that just complicate the process.

Set your current project aside. Spend a lot of time studying. You will be able to recover your gold unless you throw it away. When you have studied enough, you will understand how to proceed. As Master Kan said, "When you can take the pebble..."

By the way, there is a lot of difference between gold-filled and "the like" and how it is best processed.

Dave

Thanks, Dave.

Any reason to possibly dilute it with water or something?

I already used the lesser strength vinegar formula to get some kind of tar gunk off a coin.

I do recognize the dangers, and really did not want to get even this far. I just have too many other interests and thought this could be easier. (Could it be easier will be my next question). I am an extremely safe person who had 57 has not ever broken a bone, nor had a serious accident.

I understand about putting this mess aside, but I need to know more about what covering it will do. Cover it with a book? These items were glass vases for plants and although they have a flat even top they don't have lids made for them. So, I want to start studying at the point I'm at right now.

I don't want you all to have to keep repeating the same things so I understand the point about studying.

To answer part of my own question:

"For example, when you dilute an acid to make a lower concentration, you never add water to acid, you instead add acid to water. It may seem at first that it shouldn't matter, but adding water to acid creates a hazardous situation, so adding acid to water is safer."

From How to Dilute Acid - Sciencingsciencing.com

goldanalog said:

I do recognize the dangers, and really did not want to get even this far. I just have too many other interests and thought this could be easier.

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Your other interests are probably easier. Everything we do is hazardous. Dangerous acids, fumes, wastes, etc. Even for an experienced refiner, while it may be "easy", it is never without risk. We try to do our best to minimize those risks by thoroughly understanding what we're doing before we start a process.

I need to know more about what covering it will do. Cover it with a book? These items were glass vases for plants and although they have a flat even top they don't have lids made for them.

Click to expand...

You cover it to keep other junk from getting into the solution, and to keep any living creature from being exposed to it. A loose covering will suffice. A simple example would be to put your containers on a flat, solid surface, safely out of harms way, and put a 5 gallon bucket, upside down, over the top. Put a rock or a brick, or something similar on the bucket so the wind or a critter doesn't knock it over. Do not breath any trapped fumes when you eventually remove the bucket.

"For example, when you dilute an acid to make a lower concentration, you never add water to acid, you instead add acid to water. It may seem at first that it shouldn't matter, but adding water to acid creates a hazardous situation, so adding acid to water is safer."

Click to expand...

That is a good rule of thumb. Do you understand why? Not trying to be a jerk here, but it's good to know why these "rules" exist. It allows us to apply them when appropriate.

The prime example is sulfuric acid. When concentrated sulfuric acid is added to water, it creates a LOT of heat. This can create a localized boiling action in the water where the acid is being added. This boiling can expel very hot, quite concentrated sulfuric acid onto you which can absolutely ruin your day, if not your life.

In the case of the mix you have, you have a somewhat dilute solution of acetic acid and hydrochloric acid. Adding water to it, while it may generate heat, will not be so vigorous as to boil and create the hazard mentioned above.

The question would be why add water. There is no need in your current situation. Cover it loosely, as it is, store it in a safe place where the fumes will not affect anything around it, and it will be fine.

Dave

Thanks for all your help.

A little more background. I've watched about 15 videos of these subjects in the last two months.

My dad was an amateur experimental metallurgist who had a huge lab in our basement. His hobby was trying to find a potable metal, one you could just mix without heat, and he worked at it for at least 35 years.

My brother has a masters in chemistry and just talked to him but I still need your help.

I realize eventually I'll need a precipitate chemical. I think eventually I will add more gold bearing metals to the glass container. Any reason to not do it soon? What should I know before I get that that next step? Am I making the solution less dangerous the more cosmetic jewelry I add?

If I made the solution less strong and waited, the gold would not have dissolved into the hcl and I would have had what I was looking for (a vial of gold flakes/dust) if I just washed it with water?

While it can work, the use of vinegar is of primary interest for those who can not access better chemicals for refining. It is not easier, better or quicker or even safer than other methods. It still makes hazardous wastes. And can even be more dangerous to use because many people think, "it's vinegar how bad can it be?" In my experience it is more complicated to use than true AR (hydrochloric acid and nitric acid), more complicated than poormans AR (hydrochloric acid and a nitrate salt), more complicated than AP and way more complicated than straight nitric acid. I do a fair bit of gold filled and often use poormans nitric acid in that I use distilled water with a nitrate salt and sulfuric acid for removing base metals (you need at least a basic understanding of how much of each to use). Even the use of AP, (copper II chloride) will remove the base metals pretty well given time. Each method will do the job, but each require a different process to work right. Each is more complicated than I have made it sound and each method can pose greatly different problems when things go wrong. I won't be much help with using vinegar as I only tried once and had such a headache I never tried it again. But I did learn about these others and I am more than happy I did. I can now work gold from many forms, I can do some silver in various ways, and learned so much more along the way.

Pay attention to Frugalrefiners words, he will not lead you wrong. He (and many others) was here helping others when I started.

I will try to give you some things to think about.
There are easy ways to recover the values from many types of scrap materials but most include the use of toxic, hazardous or potentially lethal chemicals. Unless you know and understand all the steps and potential dangers in the processes and any problems that you may encounter you will be back in the same situation you have now.
Hydrochloric acid on its own will not dissolve gold it needs some form of oxidizer but it will dissolve some base metals, that’s not a completely true statement but for where you are now it’s good enough.
If you have base metals still undissolved then the chances are fairly high that you have no gold in solution to precipitate, do you know how to test your solution to see if you have any gold in solution?
The recovery processes are the most difficult to master but are by far the most important ones, you can teach people to refine gold and silver very easily.
There are no quick answers or ways to learn this hobby, it takes time, lots of reading and understanding what you have read.
Here on the forum you will find all you need to know for free, you just have to dedicate the time to research and read everything relating to the processes you intend to use.

Thanks for all replies. I'm a rare book dealer among other things and science is something I appreciate but I've only had formal computer programming training. I understand what you're all saying. I realize with some people you really have to belabor these points.

I did invest $40 in the gas mask. It was nice to be around the chemicals and not smell anything.

As I mentioned, I have an electronic gold tester and the materials I put in tested for >10K. I know the thing works. It's obvious when it tests for something as gold. How much gold, I don't know. I really did not even want to be around the solution after it started to smell, so I didn't observe it that closely yet. What I saw seemed to be all the gold stripped away and a base silver metal on everything but I did see one gold object. In my imagination, I am thinking, maybe it precipitated already. Perhaps that was just something of more solid
gold than the other plated items.

I have some nice white hard plastic one gallon containers. They are the kind that almond milk comes in. If I was to store the solution in that with some air space of about 2 inches would that be safe?

What does your $40 gas mask filter? What concentrations? Most inexpensive gas masks are useless against the vapors created in precious metal recovery and refining, which is why many use a well designed fume cabinet.

My first piece of advice for learning is to read C M Hoke’s “Refining Precious Metal Wastes”. Published over 70 years ago, primarily for processors of jewelers wastes, it is still the best primer on the subject available. Downloadable copies are available within the signature line of Frugalrefiner.

Read it. Read it again. Read it, making real notes on real paper. Write down any and all questions you have regarding terminology and procedures you have while reading. While the terminology has remained relatively unchanged, many procedures, especially those regarding safety, have changed considerably.

By the time you get through it a third time, you may be ready to attempt the experiments described. Before doing so, please return to the Forum and describe, in detail, any questions and concerns you have. Please also describe how you propose to perform the acquaintance experiments.

Time for more coffee.

While I greatly respect this gold refining hobby/industry, I do too many things right now that take away my time (writing/arts related to spirituality). I like the character growth that comes from handling dangerous chemicals safely, but I feel it comes back to money, and right now I'm not doing this for the money.

I am mostly interested right now in cleaning up the "mess." I don't want to leave it as is. I have to work out in this storage shack and I don't want a chance of it knocking over. Preferably, I would like to bottle it if it would stay inert in that form. I could always use the HCL in some form down the road. I don't think there is $20 worth of gold there.

Since the concern is safety, I hope we can turn the conversation more to what to do now as far as if it can be bottled.