Hello from Minnesota

[JeanM]

Hello everyone,
I found this forum when I started making online inquiries about trying to salvage gold. My situation is that I am restoring old plaster statues (Stations of the Cross) from a local church, and I have found that large areas of the statues have gold leaf on them that was painted over by a previous restoration. When I chip off the old paint, the gold comes with it, and I got to wondering if there was any way to salvage this gold. I look forward to hearing the expertise!

 

[butcher]

Crush to powder, incinerate to a red hot glow with stirring and good exposure to air.
Leach gold.

 

[nickvc]

You may well recover some gold but do not expect too much or you will be disappointed.

 

[JeanM]

You may well recover some gold but do not expect too much or you will be disappointed.

Thank you!

 

[JeanM]

Crush to powder, incinerate to a red hot glow with stirring and good exposure to air.
Leach gold.

I appreciate the advice - thank you! How do you incinerate the powder?

 

[butcher]

For small lots, you can use a corning ware dish on a hot plate with gas torch-like propane, heat the powders till they stop smoking the dangerous paint and other fumes, then bring the temperature up to a red glow, stir while the powders are red hot to expose red hot powders to the air (helping to oxidize any base metals).

As Nick stated the gilding or plating may not contain much gold, and the fine powders may try to capture some of the gold solutions (even after rinsing) and may need another leach step to help release all of the gold remaining gold from the powders.

With fine powders, HCl and bleach would work for the leaching solution.

 

[JeanM]

For small lots, you can use a corning ware dish on a hot plate with gas torch-like propane, heat the powders till they stop smoking the dangerous paint and other fumes, then bring the temperature up to a red glow, stir while the powders are red hot to expose red hot powders to the air (helping to oxidize any base metals).

As Nick stated the gilding or plating may not contain much gold, and the fine powders may try to capture some of the gold solutions (even after rinsing) and may need another leach step to help release all of the gold remaining gold from the powders.

With fine powders, HCl and bleach would work for the leaching solution.

Thank you so much. Obviously there's quite a bit of art to this process!