Is this thick gold plating?

[GoldUser]

Hey,
I found those and was wondering what those are and if this gold really is good?
It looks very orange to me which got me to assume its more than average plating.
Has someone seen this before?
David

 

[Martijn]

Looks like copper to me.

 

[Martijn]

When testing for gold, use a drop of nitric. It will at least tell you if it is gold and if its thick.
A pen eraser can be used to check how thick plating is.

 

[GoldUser]

Looks like copper to me.

I dont have the material on hand. The seller said he tested it positive for gold.
Dosn't deep thick gold plating look orange?
When i look on the left side it looks to yellow for me to be copper.

 

[Martijn]

No. Gold is gold colored.
Gold chloride gets orange when more concentrated.
Thicker plating tends to look a bit dull. Less shiny.

 

[GoldUser]

No. Gold is gold colored.
Gold chloride gets orange when more concentrated.
Thicker plating tends to look a bit dull. Less shiny.

Thanks

 

[BlackLabel]

It has no functionality beside shielding.
It hasn't to withstand any plug-in/plug-out movement.
It hasn't to have any good conductivity.

If a manufacturer is able to control the thickness of the plating, he won't spent more gold than needed.

 

[nwinther]

It has no functionality beside shielding.
It hasn't to withstand any plug-in/plug-out movement.
It hasn't to have any good conductivity.

If a manufacturer is able to control the thickness of the plating, he won't spent more gold than needed.

Well, sometimes they do it as a decorative "prestige"-element on a product. "Because we can". Like gold leaf on furniture or fixtures.

This doesn't look like that, though.

 

[macfixer01]

Those are trimmings from circuitboard panel manufacturing. If you have circuit boards made they take multiple copies of your design and place them onto a standard sized panel that their equipment is set up to handle. After the boards are etched, drilled, plated, and have solder mask and silk-screening applied, they cut them apart and the remaining material around the outside edges is what is shown in your picture.

Damn, another one! Just realized I’m replying to an old thread. Maybe somebody can use the info?

 

[Daniel0007a]

Hmm, I am always interested in a method of plating gold to steel or titanium without using cyanide salts. While my method of using a cellphone for dissolving gold in solution was successful the amount of gold in 1 L was around 100 mg. I plan to do a similar thing with control heat (Propane) but before I do that I need to dissolve gold foils (very thin gold bars) in HCl 31% and 35% H202.

The last time I did this I dissolved copper, tin, lead, nickel, some gold, and other metals into a very strong acidic solution.

​

 

[Daniel0007a]

The process I know is very complex break down gold into the solution of chloroauric acid and plate it onto titanium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroauric_acid

 

[Daniel0007a]

And yes I know this is a bit off topic.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Plating is a science of itself, and a quite complex one.
It needs months studying to get a durable good bonding, and it NEEDS very pure reagents.
Nothing you can get by dissolving anything not fine gold already and proper pure chemicals.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Well I have plated art with sodium dichromate to steel, silver plating, etc. That is 30 g of sodium dichromate in 500 ml of water.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Yes, I am Yggdrasil quite familiar with plating techniques I have done a lot of planting of Nickel and tin to copper pipes. I have even combined Vanadyl sulfate, Pure ethylene glycol and 31% hydrochloric acid to plate a ligand complex of Vanadium to copper. It turns green in color once urethane is coated. A lovely emerald green.

 

[rickbb]

It might be difficult to get gold to "stick" to titanium. Most platers would plate with copper first then gold on that. Not saying you can't get it plated straight, but durability would suffer.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Well it is not pure gold but copper, tin, and lead with nickel. I have nickel sheets that I could add to the solution to increasing the nickel concentration but I am afraid this contaminates my results. I found that the H202/HCl especially at 35% H202 100 ml to 31 percent HCl 500 ml could cause the tin-lead to fall out of the solution requiring filtering with Polypropylene fiber from a mask. Thus I may be able to quickly remove any sludge if it forms.

I am not sure if increasing Ni concentrations would work well.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Also in Quebec owning Nitric acid is difficult and often very restricted.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Well it is not pure gold but copper, tin, and lead with nickel. I have nickel sheets that I could add to the solution to increasing the nickel concentration but I am afraid this contaminates my results. I found that the H202/HCl especially at 35% H202 100 ml to 31 percent HCl 500 ml could cause the tin-lead to fall out of the solution requiring filtering with Polypropylene fiber from a mask. Thus I may be able to quickly remove any sludge if it forms.

I am not sure if increasing Ni concentrations would work well.

You always plate one metal at a time.
Different metals need different voltages dependent on the situation.
The “plating” picture you have, is not proper plating. It is more a cementing.
As you can see it is also peeling off.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Yes when I first did it it was tricky I plan to soak the titanium in H202/HCl for a few hours blot dry them with paper or towel and hit the titanium with propane. It a passive method of electroplating gold to titanium. Thin sheet of titanium works the best I found while thicker steel plates were very heavy and hard to work with.