Hello all. I'm getting ready to process a batch of magnetic gold filled wrist watch tops. They are cleaned, incinerated and ready to go. My plan is to run them in hot hydrochloric acid first, rinse them thoroughly, then process them in dilute nitric. Just wondering if anyone thinks this is a good way to go, or if this batch should be processed another way. I've read that adding a small amount of sulfuric to the dilute nitric could help with the magnetic metals, as maybe opposed to a hot hydrochloric acid treatment, but I'm not sure which method would work best, or when to use either or. Thanks!
Need insight on processing magnetic Gold filled wrist watch tops
- Thread starter icejj
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Are these stainless steel underneath?
I believe some of them may be stainless, I filed down parts of them and saw a silver colored metal, so I'm thinking that those could be stainless. I dont know any other way to tell though. The others are an unknown type of metal...
If they are true stainless steal then nitric will probably not dissolve it.
Do you have a picture of the material and it's markings?
Do you have a picture of the material and it's markings?
Okay, so then hot hydrochloric should do the trick right? Some have markings but most don't, but they have all passed an acid test. They look like this
Maybe it's the picture, but they don't appear to be gold or maybe they have been striped already...I'm confused.
Those are the types of wristwatches I'll be processing, but not the exact batch I'm running. I'm away from home right now so I couldn't send a picture of the exact batch. In that pic, I believe some are gold filled and some are not, and you're right about it not being the best picture so it may be hard to tell.
To provide an update; After incineration of the gold filled magnetic watch tops, I put them in
hot HCL. This actually dissolved all of the base metals on a couple of the watch tops (there were a couple of foils floating), which I wasn't expecting. After the hot hcl boil, I thoroughly rinsed the material, then processed everything in dilute nitric. I was left with the gold foils from about 97% of the watch tops. The other 3% were partially dissolved with loosened foils.
hot HCL. This actually dissolved all of the base metals on a couple of the watch tops (there were a couple of foils floating), which I wasn't expecting. After the hot hcl boil, I thoroughly rinsed the material, then processed everything in dilute nitric. I was left with the gold foils from about 97% of the watch tops. The other 3% were partially dissolved with loosened foils.
William656
Member
It’s funny, I almost bid on that lot, but I felt it looked too sketchy like most the gold was gone. Let us know hoe your yield turns out. Surprised they were magnetic. I think thats a red flag, but if you got foils, then great!
Small world! Lol The lot pictured are are the types of wristwatches that I'm processing, but not the exact batch I'm processing right now. I used that picture because I was away from home and couldn't send a picture of the exact batch, but wanted to show the type of material that I was inquiring about. Sorry if it seemed confusing. The magnetic ones came from several different sellers, and was not from the lot pictured. Magnetic can be sketch for me too, so I performed an acid test on them just to make sure. But now that I'm thinking about it, would an acid test matter if the material is stainless steel? Could gold over stainless steel scrap (watch tops) give you a false positive in some cases? I'll make sure to update on how my yield turns out.
