Getting gold off gold-filled or the like?

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When in doubt, cement it out.

First, test your solution with stannous chloride to see if there is any gold in solution. Don't just test the solution at the top. Give it a good stir before extracting your sample to test. If there is any gold in solution, cement it out with copper. When the solution tests barren, siphon it off and treat it (responsibly) as waste. Put the remaining solids (where any of your gold may be) in an appropriately sized container and store it safely.

When you're ready, your gold will still be there.

Dave
 
Thanks. The only sources of copper I have readily available I believe are pre-1982 pennies (that contain some zinc) and coat hangers. Will either of those two work?
 
FrugalRefiner said:
First, test your solution with stannous chloride to see if there is any gold in solution.
Click to expand...

You don't need any copper if there's no gold in solution. You're getting ahead of yourself worrying about what to use to cement until you determine if there are any values in solution.

Test your solution. Post a picture of your test result.

Dave
 
FrugalRefiner said:
FrugalRefiner said:
First, test your solution with stannous chloride to see if there is any gold in solution.
Click to expand...

You don't need any copper if there's no gold in solution. You're getting ahead of yourself worrying about what to use to cement until you determine if there are any values in solution.

Test your solution. Post a picture of your test result.

Dave
Click to expand...

I do not have any stannous chloride. Anything else around the house might work? Since I know about 7 objects tested for gold that I put in there, there must be some in there. The yellow object I saw was a gemstone which I forgot to remove.
 
10% H2SO4 and iron (transformer or motor laminates are a good source of iron), dissolve the iron with heat, corning dish on a solid burner electric hot plate or similar, evaporate to crystalize the green iron salts, you can store crystals in some of the concentrated solution keeping the crystals wet in the acidic solution in a small HDPE bottle with an airtight plastic lid.

A crystal of the copperas (ferrous sulfate) FeSO4 in a white porcelain spot plate (plastic spoon) will precipitate any gold (if involved) from a few drops of the solution forming a brown ring around the crystal...

If PGM metals are suspected the solution from this test can be moved to another well of the spot plate and tested again using an appropriate reagent, now the gold removed from this test will not interfere with this test altering the color...

Tin from solder and HCl making stannous chloride is simple, tin fishing sinkers, tin from pewter, electronic scrap...
 
I think I may add more gold items to it to make sure the cementing process is reasonable. It sounds like you are saying even 2 lbs of gold plated items might not register as having any gold content. A lot of items that look like gold register as flash gold, and I'm not even putting that stuff in.

I would like to do it with stanneous cloride as I don't want to add anything that might bring in another reaction. But that means ordering it from Amazon and waiting a few days. I doubt I have any pure tin in my possession that I know of in. Making pure tin from other objects seems involved. I would like to take out that step and make this as safe as possible. For the copper, I'm just going to get some copper plumbing down at the hardware store.

Thanks again for all the help. I know I'll need more. Whatever is cemented I assume will be inert enough to keep in a glass vial. Then I believe more processes are involved if I want to get a gold bead.
 
Scrap copper wire will do in a pinch. Better yet a piece of copper water pipe, slit open and hammered flat. For the amount of gold you possibly have the pennies might work, but I know, first hand, the water pipe works very well when flattened out. If not split open you risk some gold being stuck inside the round pipe.
 
Forget about testing or precipitating gold right now. Acetic acid and salt will create a weak hydrochloric acid. It will not dissolve gold in any reasonable settings. Any gold present will be in the solids. The reason you see white metallic surfaces where it was gold colored before is because of two reasons.

1. It wasn't gold in the first place and the acid removed or bleached the golden paint.

2. Some metals can go in solution at first and then plate out on top of the gold, giving the appearance that the gold went into solution. Different metals and alloys in acid is creating local batteries that can supply the electrical current needed to plate another metal onto gold.

So for now, either abandon the plans of recovery and refining gold, or do some solid learning and research here on the forum. Read Hoke, you need it.

Gold refining is an area where a little knowledge can be dangerous. A few youtube videos is not a solid knowledge base to stand on.
Also, prepare to pay more in chemicals and equipment than any gold you will recover over in the near future. This can be a profitable hobby or even a career, but it will take time and effort. If it was easy everyone would do it.

Göran
 
Excellent. I needed to read everyone's post. And I have started to read Hoke. The last post was especially interesting as you are saying that the gold that I put in and tested as gold is still on the items? Is there any way to return it to the bright yellow color? I have no reason to disbelieve my electronic tester.

One possibility is that even though it registered as a grade above "flash gold," it's still relatively thin and washed away as if it were paint.

I am going to use my long tongs and take one or two of the items out and examine them away from the container. Any suggestions on what I should be looking for or do?

I am the type who likes to learn by doing, but I wouldn't have gotten in this mess if I knew anything when I started. People should make comments on these YT videos about how dangerous the vinegar method can be.
 
Today I poured off a large amount into a gallon plastic jug that was half filled with water. I'm hoping this dilution is OK. I capped the jug with its original screw cap.

I switched lids on the main mixture to an old silver-plated serving tray that is perfectly flat because I noticed the lid I had on it before had a slight curve to it. Hoping this introducing this metal doesn't do anything bad.

I will probably fish out one of the pieces of jewelry, put it in some water to get the acid off, and have a crack at it (literally) with some pliers to see what's going on. I might retest it for gold.

I have the day job to do (in this case painting my house) so I was only able to find the pennies or a copper hanger, and didn't have the time to start tearing apart some broken electronics for some copper. Since I didn't get an OK on either, I didn't proceed with that. Sometimes about coat hangers doesn't seem like 100% pure copper.
 
I'm hoping I can get a direct response to this question :D

I left half the liquid in the container with the precious jewels. :eek:

I really need to work around this area, so would like to pour the remaining liquid directly into a gallon white plastic jug and then cap it. I want to do some more work with it later. It seems like the plastic is strong as far as these kinds of containers go. I am wondering if this will be OK. Obviously, the solution doesn't seem to be omitting too much gas or it would have blown the lid off, although I imagine if I take the lid off there might be a little compression and more fumes might come off immediately.

My question is, is that OK and safe?
 
FrugalRefiner said:
What kind of plastic jug? Look at the code on the bottom of the jug and let us know.

Dave
Click to expand...

It says HDPE with a 2 in the symbol for recycle.

I did a search on "can you store hcl in 2 hdpe" and got a chemistry.stackexchange response that says you can. Let me know if there is still a problem because of the metals that have been soaking in it for 2 weeks.

The funny thing is the lid was the problem as its one of those that can get tight but then goes through cycles where it will get lose again. I guess having the foil seal avoided that problem before it was open but its not a good type lid for acids. Luckily it only had a little water in it when I was reading the bottom as it dripped out even when tightened. Spoiled milk makes you go back to the store for more.

I found a HDPE 2 jug from laundry detergent and I'll use that.
 
I let the jewelry sit in some water and that further purified it by rusting out any ferrous elements. I didn't want to test it again because the tester has a liquid dipping reservoir and the items have to be perfectly clean. Just posting as I didn't forget to let you know my progress.

The rusting technique made me think there might be an interesting safe technique created in the future of removing ferrous materials that way. Just to get it a little purer. A vise, some water, hammer, and a "gold brick" made from plated material?
 
Rust is only a passivization of the surface material to protect the underlying materials. Somewhat like silver chloride crust will stop the dissolution of the gold underneath it.
It does not work as a way to remove large volumes of base metals from materials to be refined sir.
 
I wish I lived near that Menard's that sells a gallon of muriatic acid for $4.00. Around here it's more like $8 to $12 a gallon. But since you're going to the hardware store to get copper piping, why not get some muriatic (also known as HCl), and some Bonide stump remover? Or just make your own Copperas, following Butcher's method?
Where did you get the metal detector device? That's a fairly advanced and costly item at your level I would think.

Keep reading until it stops confusing you. At first it will probably make you want to fall asleep, but eventually you'll begin to remember and recognize key concepts. I had to read and re read Hoke's book before I could correctly start connecting the dots at all.

Become familiar with the reactivity table to understand "cementing".

If you have lab glassware of any sort, it will be a godsend. I had no intentions at first of getting one, but I eventually found a distilling apparatus to be particularly helpful, and heating equipment is necessary. You simply must have basic tools to do this safely, and I'm not talking about a respirator. Do any chemical reactions outside, unless you have a fume hood. ETC...

I hope that didn't come off as rude. I'm not sure what you know yet.
 

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