Non-Chemical Gold tarnish problem

[goldsilverpro]

So if I clean it it will re-tarnish in time?

Face it. You screwed up the gold because of your lack of knowledge. Now you know better. Everybody goes through these screw-ups and that's one way we learn. The contamination is throughout the entire bead. The only thing that sulfuric will do is to remove the oxide (not tarnish) from the surface and make it look better. Cleaning only removes it from the surface. The next time you melt it, it will come up from the inside of the bead and will be right back on the surface.

You can re-purify the gold by dissolving it in aqua regia and using the standard precipitation method, etc., as outlined in great detail on this forum. Or, you may be able to get it to an acceptable purity by simply melting it in a jeweler's melting dish with a torch and fluxing it with a pinch of borax and a prill or two of sodium nitrate - for a 1 gram bead, it won't take much - try not to overdo it. The sodium nitrate will oxidize the contaminating metals in the bead, bring these oxides to the surface, and they will be collected by the borax, which makes up the slag. When the surface of the molten bead is like a mirror, with no white scum floating on it, at all, it is pretty pure. If the contamination is severe, this is less likely to work.

 

[Palladium]

What are you using these 1 gm bb's for? ebay?

 

[mr-fixit]

Yes ignorance is bliss until you screw up
Why do I want 1g bb's? I can see hyperinflation round the corner :!:

Thank you one and all

 

[mr-fixit]

Hello folks.
I've decided to go for melting method, its the least complicated.
Sodium Nitrate in prill form seems to be hard to find in the UK. Agricultural Sodium Nitrate in 25kg bags is available but I only need a small amount. I came across urea/carbamide, is this a suitable replacement?
Could anyone recommend a uk based supplier?

This is getting interesting

 

[micronationcreation]

Surely the easiest way to make 1gram buttons from a bar is to dissolve the entire bar in AR and split the powder into 1gram batches.

I would worry about the losses cutting could cause.

 

[Palladium]

I would worry about the losses cutting could cause.

Don't worry the Stainless will make up for that.

 

[mr-fixit]

For your information there was no loss of weight caused by cutting and no gain in weight from the stainless. Scales 0.01.

 

[micronationcreation]

Picture of my first attempt at 1 gram buttons a few weeks ago, they are a bit irregular/amateurish for my liking.
Food for thought though...

 

[eeTHr]

The industry standard for gold bullion is three nines. Unless you started with Maple Leafs, or some other four nines gold, any contamination is going to result in less than three nines buttons. If you sell your grams as bullion, and someone checks it, you could be in for trouble.

Even if you start with four nines gold, if you have one thousandth contamination, you will have less than three nines in your grams.

They do look pretty cool, though, and would probably sell on ebay for over spot, I think.

 

[butcher]

Nice but, for trading for bread, say they are 23k , 23.5K or higher, and a buyer he would have to test each one and would have no idea of the karat above 22K, now buyer tried with 22k acid test, they would show 22k and that would be the most they would trade for, by doing that with so many small beads you could lose a lot of gold in the trade, now try and trade them to the farmer who does not know how to test for gold, he may just tell you I will keep my cow, that could be brass for all I know, I would consider silver (coins or known silver content) like marked sterling, as barter for bread and keep the gold in larger bars. say I had a gold bar stamped 999.9 and got into a bind and needed some bread, which would you take in trade the beads you have or shavings from my assayed bar?

Same thing with marked sterling silver do not melt or cut it up, I would trade bread for pieces I witnessed cut off the candlestick that had the stampings before just some unknown white metals you had. Or take coins of known content or half's of coins.

 

[micronationcreation]

They do look pretty cool, though, and would probably sell on ebay for over spot, I think.

Thanks, i sold them on ebay last week and got average £37 gbp each,

I dont know the purity but the gold was put through AR twice and i use Harold's washing routine.

 

[eeTHr]

micro---

Oops, I thought you were the Original Poster, with the contamination problem. Sorry.

Glad you got your price for them.

 

[patnor1011]

You can buy casting grain. Small balls of gold.

 

[acpeacemaker]

Everytime I hear about this kind of stuff it always makes me think of drug dealing. (I can't help it, that's the way my mind works.) Going and buying a oz or lb. And then nickel and dimeing people to death. Now, its said that's where dealers go wrong is they end up using their own supply, therefore leaving them broke. So in comparison what happens to the person slingin' the gold?

 

[patnor1011]

Or another option is to buy gold sheet and cut in desired weight/shape...
I was offered this in one refinery - sheet with karat stamped on it. I once had ring made from my gold and got excess back in sheet stamped 585 (14k).

 

[mr-fixit]

Hello folks, back for more help and info.
Melting dishes and Borax arrives this week. So the first thing to do is condition the melting dish with Borax, a thin even layer being preferable, just enough to seal the porous ceramic dish? Presuming this is correct, I have an idea. Make a borax paste and rub it into the dish. Dry it out on a radiator then warm up the dish with a torch before melting the borax directly.
Your comments and advice are welcome.

 

[Geo]

try not to over complicate a process. if you have a hot plate it would be wise to use that. warm the melting dish as hot as the hot plate will get it, this will drive out any moisture and hopefully keep from cracking the dish. next heat the dish with your torch, keep the flame far enough back to heat the entire dish evenly. you will see small spots inside the dish glow brightly, this is tiny pieces of clay but are a good indicator of when to move the torch closer. during this phase there is no pattern to follow just be sure to heat the dish till it glows all the way through. have the borax ready, move the torch away and sprinkle borax liberaly around the edges. now apply the torch to the edge and work your way in pushing melted borax with the flame as you go. add borax as needed. when the entire inner surface looks wet and shiney remove the heat and either allow to cool or add gold and start your melt. if the dish cracks it is still useable but allow borax to cool and then reheat before melting gold.

 

[Harold_V]

Key to successfully heating a new dish is to heat it very slowly, so entrapped moisture has an opportunity to escape before converting to steam. Once the dish is above the boiling point of water, you can pour the heat on quite quickly.

For coating with borax, if you can obtain borax glass or anhydrous borax, it's a much more pleasant task. Neither of them puff up when heated, and are not easily blown about with a torch.

Harold

 

[mr-fixit]

Thanks for the advice folks :!:
What if the decontamination, as described earlier, dosent work? And my 24k gold stays at 22k. Thats means Ive lost 8% of the value.
Is is possible to add weight with silver and or copper by smelting with a melting dish and butane torch to make the gold 22k in weight, ie 91.6% gold?
By doing this I dont lose value.

 

[Palladium]

Regardless of what you add you have already lost that gold. That gold is now part of the stainless steel that you melted it on. The only way to make it 24 karat is to process it again in acid. If you want your 8% back you will have to recover it from the stainless, re-refine your 22 karat and combine the lots to arrive at the original starting weight. Theoretically of course.

You lost your value that is now gone and you want to replace it with something else, at somebody’s else’s expense so you don't lose money? I pity the sucker who get's taken. Am i reading that right? Please tell me that ain't your intentions. If that's the case i think i will have to refrain from giving any direction in this situation. If your here to learn that's great, but if it's the other........