Casting a 2tonne block of gold (yes I said 2tonne)

[Chumbawamba]

Sure, but it only has to LOOK like tungsten. It'll still weigh correctly

 

[goldsilverpro]

I would say that nickel looks like tungsten and it's a lot easier to plate.

 

[Harold_V]

I would say that nickel looks like tungsten

Not in my experience. I've machined a fair amount of tungsten (not a fun job). It's a dull gray color, very unlike nickel, which has a distinct yellow cast. Allowed to age, tungsten has a totally different appearance.

Harold

 

[eagle2]

Lol, :lol: I sure like the idea, about making a fake `brass bell`, for my boat. Keep the story simple and put more girls in it. Of course, any novel I wrote would be simple and short. :mrgreen:

Al

 

[geonorts]

Gold produced by mining companies is usually gold Dore, often of a lower purity from 40-80% Au with Ag, Pd, Pt... etc depending on the mine. This is usually sent off to refineries and then sold. I've heard rumours that some mines would get 1-2 armoured vehicles pretend to load them and send them off when in fact the gold is put into a car and casually driven to the refiner. Just a thought

 

[Fournines]

After melting, they cast (they didn't show much about how they did the casting) it all into hand tools, such as large wrenches, painted them black, and put them in a big tool box on a truck. Do you know anyone that paints their tools solid black? Also, just putting them together in a box would rub off some paint and expose the gold. Were it me, I would have heavily nickel plated the tools and then done something to make them look used - scratch them a bit and wipe on some dirty grease, maybe. The nickel could easily be removed with nitric at a later date.

I know of someone who was doing just that. They molded common items and painted them to pass through customs. Got caught, spent some time in jail.

 

[T3sl4]

Hmm, even if you could plate tungsten, it obviously wouldn't have a sintered structure (probably the main reason it has a gray color). That suggests, then, taking standard tungsten forms (bar, rod, etc.), hollowed out, and filling them with gold. For example, a cylinder could be bored, a gold plug inserted (or poured in place), and a shrink-fit tungsten plug tapped into the remaining headspace. Done correctly, there's very little airspace remaining, the integrity is almost metallurgical, and it's very difficult to detect (assuming you machine the mating surfaces to hide the seam).

Once complete, by melting the gold inside, it would probably braze to the tungsten, which would allow a metallurgical bond, though it may seep through the pores and the remaining seam, providing some evidence. A simple press fit setup may be better.

As altars go, it's a wonderfully outlandish plot element, but as has been mentioned, it has a lot of problems, too. Some, like materials in contact with the altar, could be addressed; for instance, it might've been buried in a tomb instead, soil not touching the metal directly. This creates other problems, such as finding an undisturbed, period-correct tomb to hide it in (without disturbing anything, especially the entryway), or worse yet, trying to create one from scratch. Maybe it would be appropriate that the protagonists run across just such a find, I don't know.

Tim

 

[Ocean]

Maybe some of us need to write our own books. :roll:

Sounds like his plot has more opportunity to capture the interest of his target market than some of the proffered simplified/technically correct ideas.