Electro deplating

[itswillist]

I have a ton of scrap Gold Filled watch bands which seems like
It will take forever to pull each little gf cap off the
Steel elastic bands to prep for acid. I was wondering, could
All these watch bands just be cleaned and reverse plated
. Does reverse plating work on gf watch bands with steel
Elastic bands ?? I hope so, if not is there any quicker way ? Than pulling each little cap off 1 by 1 ??

 

[nickvc]

With the the stainless you could put into a beaker cover with full strength HCl and heat to very hot, this should start to dissolve the stainless and if you keep going long enough you could dissolve most of them but try for say 1/2 hour and see if the caps are detaching from the steel.

 

[Geo]

The stainless steel band is, for the most part, non-magnetic, and will not dissolve in even hot nitric acid. The steel springs and the silver layer on the bottom of the cap will dissolve. This usually releases large, heavy gold foils of the karat gold. What's left is the stainless steel and the gold foils. Allow the foils to settle and slowly decant. Stop before decanting any solids from the bottom of the beaker. Add some distilled water to rinse and decant into a different beaker. Rinse again if needed to remove the color from the solution. Pull the bands out one at a time and rinse any stuck foil back into the beaker with a spray bottle. Wear gloves if you intend to handle the bands after leaching.