Hi friends!
I've been here learning for a couple years and would like to thank my friends that tought my,coached me when I ran into problems or uncertanty and reminded me about 'SAFETY'! You shared your knowlage of this exciting field that I knew nothing about. Refining has brought me so much pleasure! I hope I can help other nubes experience what I have.
Up untill now I've been doing everything with AP for recovering gold and HCl/clorox for refining the gold I recovered. After the last year reading your posts and watching the videos I feel I've gained the understanding of the chemistry and how the materials I'm working with should be attacted. So! I set up and processed my first small batch of 14K and 10K gold jewelry! Inqurting with a silver half dollar, disolved in 50/50 nitric/distilled water digested the gold sponge in HCl/cloroxe and dropped with SMB. Think I did well for a nube getting his feet wet! For any new members, don't attempt to process a material untill you can understand what will be going on inside the reaction vessel and why you're doing it and how to do it safely You see how many posts start with "I need help with the mess I've created...." You want to hold your precious metal in your hand when done and not have you effort end in failure or injury!
My first scrap gold purchase was from a guy who needed money really bad and came to Denney's and asked me if I was the gold guy. He said he wanted $100 for his gold and I bought a small plastic bag full. !0K, 14K, one 18K piece some .925 silver belt buckels,rings and a few silver coins. I don't have my notes with me here but I inquarted the 10&14K stuff and I recall that if I melted the stuff along with one of the silver half dollars, it was supposed to give me a mix of 25% gold/75% silver or whatever other metals were in the alloy.
For nubes; Inquarting with silver.
In order to recover the gold from jewelry alloys you use nitric acid mixed half and half with distilled water to disolve all the metals that aren't gold, thus leaving the gold as a solid that can be filtered out and refined to purity. This process will not work if the gold content is over 25% that is why you must calculate how much gold and how much other metal in the material and then figure out how much silver you need to add to bring the gold down to25% or 6K
I got my nitric recently. I set up outside with a hotplate and a waterbath to place the beaker into so I could bring the reaction beaker to a simmer.
My nitric acid is 67% so I would be mixing it with distilled water 50%/50%. First I pourd the water into the beaker to cover the inquarted gold then, I put the hotplate to medium and brought it to a simmer. Then I added the nitric acid,a couple mililiters every once-in-a-while as the reaction stopped I'd add alittle more with an eyedropper. when I added another mililiter and saw no further reaction I left the beaker covered and on the heat for a couple hours.
For nubes; disolving the non-gold metals,mostly silver or copper with acid.
you will end up with the solid gold in the the beaker and the silver, copper or other base metals disolved in the solution
YOU NEVER DO THIS WORK WITH ACIDS INDOORS WITHOUT A PROPER VENT HOOD SET-UP
NITRIC ACID FUMES WILL KILL YOU AND IT WILL SEVERLY DAMAGE ANYTHING METAL IN THE WORK AREA
After it cooled, I ran the solution thru the same coffee filters four times and rinsed the gold into the same filters.
I disolved the gold withHCl/clorox added ice to double the volume of the solution. after the ice melted, I filtered it again and got alittle more silver and that's where I' at now>
For nubes;
In this post, I'm sharing my first attemot at refining gold jewelry, (something I haven't tried before.)
I explained the reason for each step and what you want to accomplish so that new members can get a basic idea of how it works.
It is not intended to be instructions for how you should try to refine jewelry! There is alot more you need to learn before you ever try this
I;ll add more and let's see how the gold drop turns out, gotta wash it and see what I have
I've been here learning for a couple years and would like to thank my friends that tought my,coached me when I ran into problems or uncertanty and reminded me about 'SAFETY'! You shared your knowlage of this exciting field that I knew nothing about. Refining has brought me so much pleasure! I hope I can help other nubes experience what I have.
Up untill now I've been doing everything with AP for recovering gold and HCl/clorox for refining the gold I recovered. After the last year reading your posts and watching the videos I feel I've gained the understanding of the chemistry and how the materials I'm working with should be attacted. So! I set up and processed my first small batch of 14K and 10K gold jewelry! Inqurting with a silver half dollar, disolved in 50/50 nitric/distilled water digested the gold sponge in HCl/cloroxe and dropped with SMB. Think I did well for a nube getting his feet wet! For any new members, don't attempt to process a material untill you can understand what will be going on inside the reaction vessel and why you're doing it and how to do it safely You see how many posts start with "I need help with the mess I've created...." You want to hold your precious metal in your hand when done and not have you effort end in failure or injury!
My first scrap gold purchase was from a guy who needed money really bad and came to Denney's and asked me if I was the gold guy. He said he wanted $100 for his gold and I bought a small plastic bag full. !0K, 14K, one 18K piece some .925 silver belt buckels,rings and a few silver coins. I don't have my notes with me here but I inquarted the 10&14K stuff and I recall that if I melted the stuff along with one of the silver half dollars, it was supposed to give me a mix of 25% gold/75% silver or whatever other metals were in the alloy.
For nubes; Inquarting with silver.
In order to recover the gold from jewelry alloys you use nitric acid mixed half and half with distilled water to disolve all the metals that aren't gold, thus leaving the gold as a solid that can be filtered out and refined to purity. This process will not work if the gold content is over 25% that is why you must calculate how much gold and how much other metal in the material and then figure out how much silver you need to add to bring the gold down to25% or 6K
I got my nitric recently. I set up outside with a hotplate and a waterbath to place the beaker into so I could bring the reaction beaker to a simmer.
My nitric acid is 67% so I would be mixing it with distilled water 50%/50%. First I pourd the water into the beaker to cover the inquarted gold then, I put the hotplate to medium and brought it to a simmer. Then I added the nitric acid,a couple mililiters every once-in-a-while as the reaction stopped I'd add alittle more with an eyedropper. when I added another mililiter and saw no further reaction I left the beaker covered and on the heat for a couple hours.
For nubes; disolving the non-gold metals,mostly silver or copper with acid.
you will end up with the solid gold in the the beaker and the silver, copper or other base metals disolved in the solution
YOU NEVER DO THIS WORK WITH ACIDS INDOORS WITHOUT A PROPER VENT HOOD SET-UP
NITRIC ACID FUMES WILL KILL YOU AND IT WILL SEVERLY DAMAGE ANYTHING METAL IN THE WORK AREA
After it cooled, I ran the solution thru the same coffee filters four times and rinsed the gold into the same filters.
I disolved the gold withHCl/clorox added ice to double the volume of the solution. after the ice melted, I filtered it again and got alittle more silver and that's where I' at now>
For nubes;
In this post, I'm sharing my first attemot at refining gold jewelry, (something I haven't tried before.)
I explained the reason for each step and what you want to accomplish so that new members can get a basic idea of how it works.
It is not intended to be instructions for how you should try to refine jewelry! There is alot more you need to learn before you ever try this
I;ll add more and let's see how the gold drop turns out, gotta wash it and see what I have
What are you planning on precipitating the gold with? I'm guessing SMB?
