Removing Gold From Borax

I am using a Kerr Maxi Electromelt 100 Oz. furnace with a graphite crucible to melt 2-3 Kg. gold bars from scrap jewelry, quite successfully. The problem I am having is with Borax. I am unsure of how much borax I should be using. Currently I use 1-2 spoonfulls per 2 Kg. batch. I worry because I have a nice bag full of borax with millions of tiny dots of gold.

Without using acids, how can I get the gold (and diamonds I suppose) out of the Borax to re-melt and sell?

I'll post pictures if it helps but I am assuming you guys know what I am talking about.

Smash it up a bit, disolve it in water.
Heat if needed.

You could remelt the borax that has the gold "dots" in it. Let it cook for a little while. All of the little gold pieces should pool together once you pour the molten borax into a mold, after it cools, break the borax away and you will have a little button.

As for the diamonds, they're going to be worthless once they've been put through a melt and captured in borax. Most little diamonds are not worth much right now anyhow. Here in New York you can sell them for maybe $25-50 per carat.

Last time I checked anhydrous borax will not dissolve in water platdigger, you are maybe confusing that with laundry borax? :lol:
http://www.home-ec101.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/concert-001.jpg

Break up your flux so the pieces are small enough to react with a few more ingredients you will be adding in the old flux and do a flux melt. To the borax add some soda ash equal to the amount of crushed up old borax you have started with, add an equal amount of Borax (always use anhydrous) and about 1/4 part flourospar (calcium flouride) this will really thin the flux. Easy on the flourospar it eats up crucibles. Now heat it up to melting temperature.

Now pour the molten flux, which will be much less viscous than before, into a cone mold. The beads will collect on the bottom of the mold and are easily separated from the slags. Cone molds are valuable tools, often overlooked, but they make collection of the beads you have entrapped in the slag much easier.

It has been my experience that diamonds that have been fluxed and melted are worthless but Harold has had different experience and his input here may teach us all something.

That's right Fournines, I have done this with the laundry type.
I thought the only difference was the moisture content.

There is much confusion about borax, mostly because it comes anhydrous and is called borax glass, and it also comes with "10 waters" which is what is sold as a laundry soap, it's referred to as Borax as well but it is almost half water by weight Na2B4O7 . 10 H2O.

Bottom line is after about 760 C the waters are gone and it's all borax glass. On its way to becoming dehydrated, it swells and can overflow your crucible, that is why borax glass is best. But after it has seen the heat it's all the same.

I get my Borax from a chemical supply, and it comes in a clear bag sold by the pound. I assumed it was anhydrous, but after reading 4metals post I see it is not. When I place Borax on a warm crucible it fluffs up like popcorn! The crucible needs to be red hot for the Borax to immediately melt and have the water evaporate, thus I have laundry borax!

I do not have a cone mold, but I have tried re-melting all my borax to get gold out of it. I got a few grams but the flux is still full of tiny gold particles.

I tried heating the Borax in water but was unsuccessful. I will get the soda ash and try the recipe. Just one question on that though. Its 1 part old borax, 1 part soda ash; to that mixture (say it came out to 100 grams) I add 1 part (100 grams) anhydrous Borax and 1/4 parts flour spar (25 Grams). Is this correct? I heat to say... 1750 Fahrenheit, stir and pour. Correct?

That's the mix for old borax in a remelt but for just melting karat gold use 2 parts borax, 1 part soda ash, and 1 part flourospar. That will make a nice fluid flux that shouldn't hold up your beads. Check into cone molds they're not too expensive, check out Legend in Sparks Nevada they have them. http://www.legend-reno.com/

I have also seen cone molds homemade by welding 4 triangles of steel into an inverted pyramid, never used one but it should work. Anybody made one?

4metals said:

It has been my experience that diamonds that have been fluxed and melted are worthless but Harold has had different experience and his input here may teach us all something.

Click to expand...

My experience with diamonds was limited to those recovered manually from jewelry prior to melting. The exception to that was a large number of small diamonds that got through the screening process when screening polishing wastes. That material was run through my ball mill so it could be shifted to basic via the addition of adding lime. It was then processed with cyanide. This, of course, was after it had been processed with AR.

Small diamonds went through the ball mill unharmed, and were recovered when the discharged material was classified. Amazingly, diamonds were not harmed. While a few came out chipped, I concluded that they were likely discarded because they were chipped. I drew that conclusion because of the small percentage that was harmed as compared to the large number that were not.

I was selling full cut meli for $200/carat at that time, so it was worth the effort to recover them. Busted or otherwise damage diamonds could be sold for $25/carat. Diamond in any form has value, even diamond powder.

Harold

In an effort to begin learning how to properly assay I recently purchased a cone mold with six cones in it. I can't wait to break it in.

Steve

Steve,
The smaller capacity of assay cone molds for 30 gram assay crucibles can still work when the total flux volume is larger than the mold capacity. Just keep pouring, the flux will overflow and the metal will collect at the point.

Give us some feedback about using the mold to collect your beads, more of our members hearing about the molds may help some break down and try one. They are on my must have list when I set up new refiners.

4Ms,

As usual I plan on posting a video of me using the cone mold.

Steve

lazersteve said:

4Ms,

As usual I plan on posting a video of me using the cone mold.

Steve

Click to expand...

Steve your videos you have now on your website no longer work using Ubuntu aka Linux - Silverlight. WHY?

I have not changed anything besides adding more videos, when did this start for you?

Steve

lazersteve said:

I have not changed anything besides adding more videos, when did this start for you?

Steve

Click to expand...

Tried to watch watch your palladium videos two days ago. The attached picture is what I got - Get Microsoft Silverlight.

Unbutu uses Novell's moonlight and by agreement with Microsoft has a plugin fro the MS Silverlight. FYI it works on other websites without any flaws or hiccups.

Have you tested the videos you sell for compatibility on Linux, I'm thinking about bitting the bullet and purchasing some of your videos.

Best Regards
Gill

Gill:

I for one highly recommend that you do that.

I have two of Steves dvd's, Ap & Karat gold. They are very well done and offer a lot more information than the downloads, plus you can review them at your convenience as often as necessary to understand the process.

I'm sure you won't be disappointed after you view them.

Good luck to you!

dickb

4metals said:

There is much confusion about borax, mostly because it comes anhydrous and is called borax glass,

Click to expand...

Borax glass is borax that has been melted and granulated. Anhydrous borax has no water (well, almost no water) and has not been melted. They both do the same job, but they are not one and the same, althoughI believe them to be, chemically. I've used both of them with equal results. Anhydrous is opaque. Borax glass is somewhat translucent.

and it also comes with "10 waters" which is what is sold as a laundry soap,

Click to expand...

Five waters, too. I can't recall which one I used, but it was one of them when I ran my waste materials in the furnace. Damned stuff froths up like crazy! :lol:

Harold

Here are the gold bars that started the thread in the first place! 2Kg Each.

re running your fluxes is an essiential operation especially if your doing volumes of melts. One thing i would suggest after remelting and removing the visible beads would be to throw your waste flux in an old/new concrete mixer with some steel balls & blocks put a thick plastic sheet over the end and tie it down switch it on and crush it 2 a fine powder & sieve it, this will remove beads of metal & stones. You can also throw your old crucibles in. this is noisy but putting rubber matting under the mixer makes it more bearable and if you run batches of say 10 kilos it only needs doing periodically. the powder is worth assaying & will have a value which you can trade or recover yourself if you have the time or interest.

4metals said:

Break up your flux so the pieces are small enough to react with a few more ingredients you will be adding in the old flux and do a flux melt. To the borax add some soda ash equal to the amount of crushed up old borax you have started with, add an equal amount of Borax (always use anhydrous) and about 1/4 part flourospar (calcium flouride) this will really thin the flux. Easy on the flourospar it eats up crucibles. Now heat it up to melting temperature.

Now pour the molten flux, which will be much less viscous than before, into a cone mold. The beads will collect on the bottom of the mold and are easily separated from the slags. Cone molds are valuable tools, often overlooked, but they make collection of the beads you have entrapped in the slag much easier.

It has been my experience that diamonds that have been fluxed and melted are worthless but Harold has had different experience and his input here may teach us all something.

Click to expand...

Your formula worked great for me. Thus far I have removed over 80 grams of gold. The mixture you recommend works far better than simply using borax when melting. I highly recommend it to all in this forum. Thnx again.