Non-Chemical Flux Melting

[61 silverman]

Harold, I believe your intent is to properly inform with hands on knowledge!!! I see no orther... Yes I believe that the person I had spoken too is thinking of with treating ore's and not alloys... Even though I said I was inquarting,, and described the material as well. The solution He gave was too pulverize the crucible mix with the flux heat and *((SMELT)) the metals together.. Could I not pulverize the essential areas of the crucible and recover the metal WET...chemically..

You might also suspect that the white metal may have been marked silver, but it wasn't. That's not at all unusual. I had to check all silver that was submitted for refining, particularly if it was made in Mexico. All too often it was German silver, which, to the untrained eye, can readily pass for sterling. If that happened to be included, it doesn't melt at the temperature in question, but it does slowly dissolve. Also, an alloy of silver and nickel (German silver) tends to not blend well,

The silver I added is definalely not the culprit I am possitive it's Fine .999
However with the gold filled material who knows what is in there...

 

[lazersteve]

I've found that iron will attack crucibles with a vengeance. Gold filled is sometimes iron at the core.

You can crush the crucible and heat the crushed powder with flux to recover the silver.

Steve

 

[61 silverman]

steve would that be smelting or fluxing the metals out ? I am sure there is gold in there also, do you think I would need too add additional clean metal to help collect all the goods.?

 

[61 silverman]

Also I don't think I'll inquart with gold filled again, I'll stick with using silver, even though my first time in this crucible and in this" oven "my metal weight was low after recovering from the water, green stain where the metal was poured out at no other obviouse wear and tear.. The material was 10K with silver added all melted and poured out liquid, I was not knowing how or why weight was low..( THAT'S WHAT THIS FORUM IS FOR duh..) By the way steve is there a pre-view available of your gold filled method?

 

[lazersteve]

Mark,

Gold filled can have a variety of 'hidden' weight that is not part of the actual gold filled object. Some examples include, springs, glass lenses, paper fillers, glues, enamels, stones, etc.

It would not hurt to add some silver as a collector if gold is present in the broken crucible pieces.

As for a preview of the gold filled process here's the overview of the process I used on the DVD:

1. Weigh and calculate the approximate nitric required to dissolve the material.

2. Incinerate to red heat.

3. Dissolve in calculated amount of 35% nitric. This step is done in stages to control fumes.

4. Filter liquid, rinsing solids.

5. Cement silver from liquid with copper.

6. Dissolve solids with AR.

7. Filter pregnant solution until free of debris and particulate.

8. Precipitate gold with SMB.

9. Melt gold in prepared dish.

I hope this helps.

Steve

 

[61 silverman]

Steve, Thank You, Yes that does help! Sorry about taking a week to get back to the forum for your responsce.. From what I see you eliminated the HCL treatment, and went with AR instead of HCL/CL .. I had followed Hoke's instructions for the post I had started.. I'm sure your movie's are excellent learning devices.. ( I know the one's I have seen are nicely done).. and informative
What" ratio" should I blend the crushed crucible and flux ? 2-1 1-1 3-1 by weight

should The flux Be only borax or a blend ?
Thank's Mark..

P.S. I love the look of cement silver forming, I thank Harold for getting me too finally understand when the acids are ready to cement without re-disolving cemented material, understanding the balance required.. Have you or anyone else tried doing any cementing of GOLD from HCL/CL or AR, ? Treating with nitric after cementing may produce very clean gold,?? MARK

 

[Anonymous]

I am new to melting gold and had a question in regards to a piece that I have. This piece definitely has gold in it since i tested it but, after some time I have noticed that there is another metal introduced into the melted pice and i would like to know how to separate the two metals so that I have pure gold again?

 

[golddie]

If it was me I would use 1 part nitric acid and 1 part water solution to get rid of the other metal then you are left with gold grains.

 

[Harold_V]

If it was me I would use 1 part nitric acid and 1 part water solution to get rid of the other metal then you are left with gold grains.

It's not that simple, unless the two metals are not alloyed. Assuming they are, the presence of gold will restrict the nitric's ability to dissolve the base metal unless the percentage is fairly high. For example, if you have an alloy of gold and copper, with 50% gold present, it will, for all practical purposes, resist any dissolution by nitric. It is for this reason that one inquarts gold for refining. There are exceptions, of course, so they should be addressed on an individual basis.

Harold

 

[kjavanb123]

I read on SGS company site, that the flux used in fire assaying all 6 PGMs is nickel sulfide instead of copper.

Regards,
Kevin