Borax and gold recovery.

[Iain]

Hi all ! This is perhaps my first post, nonetheless, I've spent many hours admiring your site and all the great work.

I have a problem…, but firstly, perhaps I must explain the situation.

I started life as a watchmaker in England about 50 years ago and after moving to Belgium, I taught myself the jewellery trade. Teaching yourself and not going to school can bring a great deal of pleasure, unfortunately, it also results in many a catastrophy. With my workshop in the cellar under the shop…, the number of times I answered the door bell to leave the sulfuric acid heating on the hotplate was uncountable. Tchernobile comes to mind !

Also, (and the reason for this post) I had many a problem with melting my gold from filings and waste metal. More often than not, the resulting ingot was workable without too much porosity, but I always found myself with a lot of "lost gold." Lost…, in as much as I had hundreds of tiny balls of 18K locked into lumps of "crystallized" borax, and irrecoverable. During the eighties, I accumulated all this "carbon" looking stuff…, filled a kilo bag and embarrassingly hid it in the garage.

Anyway, I rediscovered the bag last week, and it was the price of gold today made me think twice about putting it back for another 20 years. See photo.

Question: Without the use of sophisticated systems and acids that need police-permission to purchase, can someone give me a non-professional way of extracting the gold ? (apart from a hammer ! :lol: )

I thank you in advance…, Iain.

 

[goldenchild]

You can send it to one of us and we will extract if for you. For a fee of course.

 

[Platdigger]

If it truly is just borax, you should be able to dissolve the borax in water.
Of course crushing first and warming the water would speed things up.

 

[Claudie]

Have you tried panning to try and separate it?

 

[qst42know]

I think this would be a preferred more complete method. Wait for Harold to respond though.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=8577&p=80168&hilit=furnace+flux#p80168

 

[Harold_V]

I think this would be a preferred more complete method. Wait for Harold to respond though.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=8577&p=80168&hilit=furnace+flux#p80168

I'd recommend that precise procedure. Key to success is a prolonged heat, however. That would be hard on a crucible, but you need do it only once or twice, depending on the volume of material at hand. A large crucible is better than a small crucible in that it not only holds more, but they have a thicker wall, so they will yield more cycles, in general.

The prolonged heating allows the prills to agglomerate, and the use of fluorspar insures a thin flux from which the prills can move to the bottom.

The black material is likely black because of the oxides contained within. My experience in cleaning melting dishes (using soda ash) convinces me that the oxides are reduced, yielding base metals, so that may help in the way of a collector. I also would not overlook the value of adding a collector.

Harold

 

[Iain]

Hi all ! Sorry I didn't reply sooner…, I'm just back !

Thanks for all that interesting information, I'll try and put it to good use.

Goldenchild: "Did you test it with stannous?" I put the gold in so I know it's 18 carat.
Platdigger: "If it truly is just borax;" Many moons ago I boiled everything for hours but to no avail…, that black material is like coal and even glass in some places and water has no effect ! Note: When I say it's only borax…, I also used kitchen salt or at times potassium nitrate, being told that the effect increases the liquidity of the gold for better pouring. That advice came from a friend of mine: http://www.jmpochet.be Not far from here is the Abbey of Maredsous where Jean-Marie worked with the monks in smelting gold. One of my pieces (below in the photo) was done in a room there where a circular trace of gold on floor, walls and ceiling can be seen, where the monks used a chain spun crucible. Amazing ! http://www.maredsous.be
Claudie: "Have you tried panning to try and separate it?" In fact, when I spoke about a hammer earlier on, I was not joking ! This was the only method I had of releasing much of the contents…, then, tilting the plate, the balls would simply roll away to be collected.
Qst42 and Harlold: Well, that's all good professional advice, and it looks as if I'm going to have to return to school. I'll study that URL posting and get back to you all with an update.

Thanks everyone…, Iain.