Melting gold gone bad

[The Fabricator]

Hello there,

I could really use some help here you see I came across some gold ore and decided to refine it myself. I crushed it up and panned out the gold pretty good. So next I was reading about using borax to melt it down with and I'm not sure what happened I ended up with some stuff that looks like charcoal. Didn't get any gold to form. I was using propane gas at first and then went and bought some MAPP gas. I tried melting it to a liquid but not sure if it was hot enough spent over three hours and three bottles of gas. 2 propane and one MAPP just to end up frustrated and a mad girlfriend who thinks I'm an idiot telling me that there is no way I'm gonna get anything out of this gold. Well I'm very hard headed and have been at it for a few days now but I'm stuck.Then I read borax will reduce heating by 500 degrees. So I poured on the borax and was able to get it melted down and it was liquid for a lol bit but I ended up with this glassy glaze kind of and no gold button or gold anything like I sewn someone do on YouTube. I tried melting around 30 grams so car by torch and I have like glass charcoal stuff.

Do I need to get it hotter to form a button or gold at the bottom? I need to somehow to remelt the borax and gold. I read soda ash will do as well as flourspar? Any info would be greatly appreciated. I still have around 30 grams of panned gold from the ore but am stuck since I can't get the gold out of the first batch. My girlfriend thinks I'm an idiot but I want to show her I can make a nice little chunk of change out of this little venture. I just need to know what to do with the charcoal stuff I have now.

I also have some platinum I got out of a catalytic converter and am not sure how to start it. I made my own batch of nitric acid that will dissolve copper so I'm pretty sure it will do fine for the platinum. I also have muriatic acid. So do I soak the stuff in muriatic acid first or pour the nitric acid and muriatic acid over it to dissolve the platinum?

 

[jimdoc]

First you stop what you are doing. Second, you explain to us where you are doing this.
Third, stop watching Youtube.

 

[bigpagoda]

Hello,
When you processed the ore and separated the gold did you do any testing to make sure it was indeed gold? Did you do the melt in a melting dish? Was the dish sitting on a block of firebrick or anything similar? The "glassy" charcoal sounds like melted borax and may have very small prills of gold in it. I do not think you got adequate heat into your melt. Propane and Mapp torches may get up to melting temperature but keeping that heat in place in your melting dish can require some additional insulation. There is a lot of posts on how to melt with them though.
Don't do anything with the catalytic converter. If you only have one, you will waste far more money trying to recover something than it is worth. If you have 1000 then you have a lot of reading to do. Keep yourself safe and sell it on Ebay.

Post some pictures.

 

[The Fabricator]

Well thanks for the input I appreciate it. I guess I'll hit the mountains up by Idaho Springs this weekend do some panning and try again.

 

[jimdoc]

Pictures would help.

 

[jimdoc]

Honestly, you should study the forum if you want to impress your girlfriend, and succeed in your quest.

Just asking some questions and coming back later for an answer doesn't work nearly as well.

This is the mining/ore section;
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=44

 

[acpeacemaker]

I have a a lot of familiarity with Colorado gold as the mountains are my playground. We have a large amount of telluride ores.
You shouldn't be melting anything down with uncertainty you actually even have gold. We have various things like arsenic that can poison you as well as your girlfriend. Be safe. As for the heat I agree with the above you might have miniscule beads that formed if it is gold. Pics don't hurt either.