My first gold button

[Martijn]

Hey guys, i'm here for some years now and after having studied like crazy trying to wrap my head around the processes, all the different ways to go and test and learn, i started about two years ago with my refining hobby in practice.
I builId a fume hood, and had all the acids and materials to go. The years before I had a collected bunch of gold plated pins scrapped with pain cramps in the fingers and a bit of blood here and there 8) . Ended up with over 5 kilo of plated pins. I now grab anything shiny i find 8)
Last year I finally had stripped enough with my sulfuric cell and went through the process of washing and cleaning.
the first one was bit ugly,

but a second pour turned out a lot better.
Here it is:


With the help of an anvil and a hammer, I made my wife a nice excuse to spend time in the shed :lol:
she was okay with that when she saw her christmas present:



7.0 gram melted down to 22 Karat with equal silver and copper, tried 24 karat first, but that was too soft.
Noxx, thanks for the great forum, and all members, Thanks for sharing your wisdom!

I've got a great new hobby! Thanks to you all. And you've kept me safe in the process.

Have 14 grams of i hope 99.9% pure in total by now. next are IC's & memory fingers is have gathered. time to study some more.

Martijn.

 

[butcher]

So you have spent these years working to find gold in someone's trash, sweating and bleeding while working hard to understand the metallurgical science and to gain some experience in the field of recovery and refining Working your brain hard trying to study and learn how to get a little gold and refine it safely.

I say the gold is great, but I feel the education and experience you have gained is worth much more than gold, and the reward your gold a noble metal is proof of your Nobel accomplishments.

The ring well It is just precious.
Great job my hardworking friend

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Very nice Martijn! Refining gold is one set of skills. Making jewelry from the refined gold is quite another. Looks like you're doing well with both!

Dave

 

[rickzeien]

Full circle recycling. Nice work. Ring is look good.

AND it makes your wife happy. GENIUS!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[francisco rodriguez]

Congratulations Martijn, I hope to be behind you in this race, I have been studying and preparing the necessary equipment for a year, I will soon begin to refine.

Thank you very much to all.

Paco

 

[Shark]

Very nice! That ring will be a great reminder for years to come.

 

[Martijn]

Thank you all for the kind words, and YES, the knowledge gained and experience is worth sooooo much more. I have a greater understanding of things in my profession, of the diferent chemical plants I work, in safety and in everyday life.
It has become kind of an addiction gathering knowledge in this field.
Like trying to refine even the "worthless" metals e.g. will give me new insights about the refining process as a whole.

Love the ride, and will stay on board indefinitely to search advice, and since a couple of months, I even felt confortable enough to give some advice to newbies, reciting the "stop what your doing", and..." reply's to relief our more experienced members having to repeat thier advise over and over..

I consider a lot of you guys as friends by now,with which i proudly want to share my accomplishments with.

Martijn.

 

[Johnny5]

Beautiful gold button!
Gorgeous gold ring!!!!

Patience is something that is so hard to teach. It's unusually satisfying to hear that you were willing to learn, before you applied what you learned.
Thanks to that method, the rest of us didn't have to wade through a bunch of redundant questions.
I for one am proud of you, and I hope you are proud of yourself.
Congratulations.
Johnny

 

[Martijn]

After being together for exactly 22 years, I got married to my beautiful wife Friday the 22 of July!

Bought her the diamond ring she wanted and made myself a half round 9.5 gram wedding ring.
Set it on 18K yellow gold and I had the luck to use a rolling mill at a friend who first had to get his jewelry workshop ready for my little project.
Just the nudge he needed to get him going again. He's was practicing making Mokume Gane jewelry but was interrupted.

It was quite hard to roll such a thick ring without it cracking too much in the mill. It took a lot of quenching and tiny steps tightening the mill.
Next time I make a ring I think lost wax casting would do a better job.

I was worried it would break when bending it but that went well, luckily. Some cracks and crevices appeared though.
After soldering it with home-made 18K hard solder I repaired the surface cracks and was almost done... got distracted for a second and burned a huge hole in the side
That was two days before the wedding...
Filled it with almost all the solder I had left.



After a bit more filing then expected and polishing the end result turned out quite nice, if I may say so myself.



Also made possible by GRF.
Thanks again to you all guiding me to this point.

 

[Yggdrasil]

After being together for exactly 22 years, I got married to my beautiful wife Friday the 22 of July!
View attachment 51340
Bought her the diamond ring she wanted and made myself a half round 9.5 gram wedding ring.
Set it on 18K yellow gold and I had the luck to use a rolling mill at a friend who first had to get his jewelry workshop ready for my little project.
Just the nudge he needed to get him going again. He's was practicing making Mokume Gane jewelry but was interrupted.

It was quite hard to roll such a thick ring without it cracking too much in the mill. It took a lot of quenching and tiny steps tightening the mill.
Next time I make a ring I think lost wax casting would do a better job.

I was worried it would break when bending it but that went well, luckily. Some cracks and crevices appeared though.
After soldering it with home-made 18K hard solder I repaired the surface cracks and was almost done... got distracted for a second and burned a huge hole in the side
That was two days before the wedding...
Filled it with almost all the solder I had left.

View attachment 51338

After a bit more filing then expected and polishing the end result turned out quite nice, if I may say so myself.

View attachment 51339

Also made possible by GRF.
Thanks again to you all guiding me to this point.

Nice

Congratulations to you and your wife mate

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Congratulations Martijn, on both the ring and your marriage.

Dave

 

[butcher]

Martijn, congratulations, and thanks for spreading your joy.

May your union, like the metals joined together to form the ring which has been forged in the heat of the fire to make a stronger alloy than the two alone, the two becoming one, overcoming the stresses of life and the blows of the hammer, to become even more beautiful and stronger reflecting the light that shines towards it.

 

[Biom]

After being together for exactly 22 years, I got married to my beautiful wife Friday the 22 of July!
View attachment 51340
Bought her the diamond ring she wanted and made myself a half round 9.5 gram wedding ring.
Set it on 18K yellow gold and I had the luck to use a rolling mill at a friend who first had to get his jewelry workshop ready for my little project.
Just the nudge he needed to get him going again. He's was practicing making Mokume Gane jewelry but was interrupted.

It was quite hard to roll such a thick ring without it cracking too much in the mill. It took a lot of quenching and tiny steps tightening the mill.
Next time I make a ring I think lost wax casting would do a better job.

I was worried it would break when bending it but that went well, luckily. Some cracks and crevices appeared though.
After soldering it with home-made 18K hard solder I repaired the surface cracks and was almost done... got distracted for a second and burned a huge hole in the side
That was two days before the wedding...
Filled it with almost all the solder I had left.

View attachment 51338

After a bit more filing then expected and polishing the end result turned out quite nice, if I may say so myself.

View attachment 51339

Also made possible by GRF.
Thanks again to you all guiding me to this point.

Beutfull happy for you .that's the best present you ever can give to your wife .some thing you made from scratch . Happy for you great handsome couple wish you the best

 

[Martijn]

Martijn, congratulations, and thanks for spreading your joy.

May your union, like the metals joined together to form the ring which has been forged in the heat of the fire to make a stronger alloy than the two alone, the two becoming one, overcoming the stresses of life and the blows of the hammer, to become even more beautiful and stronger reflecting the light that shines towards it.

You do have a way with words. That was beautiful. Thanks a lot from us both.

 

[MicheleM]

@Martijn Congratulations!!! the best for you! I hope a long and relaxing honeymoon!

 

[GoIdman]

Congratulations, and may your union be blessed from above. Great acomplishment and an even greater success for the end product.

Pete.