Button #4

The better I get the more my buttons want to crystalize is this normal? This button is my largest yet 2.33 troy ounces.

Normal, no.

Desirable, yes! It shows the high purity you have achieved, and the larger buttons also cool a bit slower helping crystalization.

Great job.

I am sure I left a big gap between my first button and my #4 button. So I will fill in that gap here.
My first button was displayed here: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=6015

Here is a pic of my second button. I have taken advice from Harold V. and kept it to use up unused Nitric at the end of the refining process. (This is really the best practice for getting rid of Nitric)
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Here is button #3. I sold it.

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2002valkyrie said:

Here is a pic of my second button. I have taken advice from Harold V. and kept it to use up unused Nitric at the end of the refining process. (This is really the best practice for getting rid of Nitric)

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Take note how using the button for eliminating free nitric develops the crystalline structure. That's typical.

Harold

I poured my first ingot. Unfortunatly I used my nitric burning button up and decided I would use the ingot. It worked great but lost a little weight. It started of weighing 1.37 oz. ended up weighing 1.28 oz. I was fortunate enough to show it to a friend who had to have it. Said he was going to make a pendant for himself. I got 100% of spot... Man I wish they were all that easy.

Well done! You are a living tribute to the value of this forum. 8)

This button started out as an attemp to pour another ingot but I found out real quick that my Mapp Gas torch will not run without freezing up in 30 degrees weather. The button weighs 1.74 oz. and has beautiful color but is a far cry from an ingot.

glorycloud said:

Well done! You are a living tribute to the value of this forum. 8)

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Thank you. That means allot to me considering there have been many people to benefit from this forum, but I may have came the greatest distance from where I was when I found the forum to where I am now. I will admit one thing that no one else has though; This is a great hobby but it is a "Big Boy's" hobby and if you are going to do this, then success comes from investments of time and money. And one must have the ability to humble himself and admit his ignorance so he can learn what must be learned. I have not reached my goal, Harold V. knows my goals as he is living proof of what comes from this wonderful hobby and I plan to be also. I will no doubt be one of the long term students here as I have a long way to go. There are many small tricks to the trade that are discussed regularly on the forum. I advise all nubes to pay attention to them and if you are going to do this then jump in whole hearted. There are people here that care enough to help them if it's over their head.

Valkyrie --- Those are beautiful buttons. Why do you refer to one of them as your "timesaver". If a button is used to consume the excess nitric in AR, I would expect this to happen slowly, even a elevated temperature. Wouldn't urea act faster to knock out the nitric if time is a concern?

chemist said:

Valkyrie --- Those are beautiful buttons. Why do you refer to one of them as your "timesaver". If a button is used to consume the excess nitric in AR, I would expect this to happen slowly, even a elevated temperature. Wouldn't urea act faster to knock out the nitric if time is a concern?

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Harold V. as well as Hoke teach to use as little A.R. as possible thus inabling you to use up the nitric as you go. But I have not gotten as good as I should be and tend to need .08 oz more gold. The button allows you to keep the solution a small quantity as well as not adding anything that is not needed.

Thanks for the explanation.

Here is a picture of my solution before the drop after the button. It is so red you can't see through it.

That is beautiful.

2002valkyrie said:

Here is a picture of my solution before the drop after the button. It is so red you can't see through it.

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Valkyrie , How much AR in is your flask, with how much gold. That is a beautiful color...Mark

Sorry just went back up I see it is 1.74 oz. NICE PIPE.

I was just messing around with different methods of precipitation. The first drop I used copper because I didn't like the way the sollution looked. The second, I used SMB, but it was just what I expected. The third was oxalic acid and it was interesting to say the least. The forth I used SO2 gas and I really don't want to melt this drop. Each time it got faster and easier. So here is the pictures, keep in mind I used the same gold over and over.

outstanding
I remember when I first started to read your posts and the aggravation you went through
It seems you have it worked out,great job!!
The climb up the mountain is always difficult but as you can now see the veiw is worth the
effort

2002valkyrie said:

I poured my first ingot. Unfortunatly I used my nitric burning button up and decided I would use the ingot. It worked great but lost a little weight. It started of weighing 1.37 oz. ended up weighing 1.28 oz. I was fortunate enough to show it to a friend who had to have it. Said he was going to make a pendant for himself. I got 100% of spot... Man I wish they were all that easy.

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How do you make this crystalized ingot? Where does Harold talk about saving a button to get rid of excess nitric?

thanks

goldenchild said:

Where does Harold talk about saving a button to get rid of excess nitric?

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I don't have a clue where I may have made mention, but it is a process used ONLY if you evaporate. When all of your feed has been dissolved, a weighed button of gold is then added to the solution, which would be kept warm enough for evaporation. As the solution concentrates, any free nitric will dissolve some of the button, or even all of it, assuming there is an abundance.

This process is used to avoid using urea. I never used urea at any time. preferring to evaporate, but more importantly, to use only the amount of acid necessary to do the intended job. You get amazingly good at judging after you've refined for a while.

However, I found it far faster to use a slight excess of acid when dissolving the values instead of trying to hit it dead on. That insured all values were dissolved when processing wastes that contained other substances, such as filings from a jeweler's bench. A slight excess insured the customer lost no gold. The added button eliminated the free nitric problem without effort on my behalf. I evaporated, regardless, because I preferred to keep my solutions highly concentrated. YMMV.

One word of caution. If you elect to use an added button of gold, do not be mislead by a lack of activity on the button as the solution gets concentrated. The cause can be due to the lack of free HCl, so to insure that is not the case, a small amount of HCl should be added to the solution as activity subsides. An excess of HCl does no harm, unlike free nitric.

By weighing the button before, then after it has been used, you can determine how much gold you added to the solution. That was important for me, because I ran individual batches for each of my customers. I had to know their yield in order to settle.

Harold

Harold_V said:

I don't have a clue where I may have made mention, but it is a process used ONLY if you evaporate. When all of your feed has been dissolved, a weighed button of gold is then added to the solution, which would be kept warm enough for evaporation. As the solution concentrates, any free nitric will dissolve some of the button, or even all of it, assuming there is an abundance.

This process is used to avoid using urea. I never used urea at any time.
Harold...

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This makes perfect sense now. What I do to get rid of excess nitric is boil the AR down a few times adding HCL to rehydrate. Using this method will take the guess work out of when the nitric is completly spent.

I agree with not using urea. I question if it really works. I think it may work if there are only very small amounts of nitric in the solution.

So I guess I cant use this method to make crystalized ingots with specific weights(i always pour troy ounce ingots) but have a new technique to make my refining more efficient. Thanks Harold!