Refining Gold from Gold Filled Jewelry

[kadriver]

Oneal58:

Hello, I received your email and I tried to reply. Was wondering if you got the message I sent back to you?

I live near Charleston - about 2 hours from you.

I would be glad to help you in any way that I can.

kadriver

 

[kadriver]

Oneal58:

I was reading through the posts and seen where you were looking to get some nitric acid.

I just bought 5 gallons from Terrace Packaging in Kansas City. 67% technical grade. I use it to refine with and it works perfectly.

I would be willing to sell you some of it to help you out.

I paid $207 for 18.92 liters (5 gallons) shipped to my door.

Thats about $11 per liter. I will sell you a 2.5 liter bottle for $30.

We live close enough to each other that it may be possible to drive and meet in the middle - have some coffee, talk shop, and get you some nitric acid to get started.

Send me an email so we can get connected.

kadriver

 

[Oneal58]

Thanks Tom, that has cleared that up for me. I appreciate your help and everyone's help here. I am sure thankful this site is here.
Tom, I have made a cell and I have used #10 bare copper ground wire as my frame. I then took and stripped telephone wire and made a basket weave pattern to lay my material on. I don't have any sides or front on the frame. My thinking is to keep the Faraday effect to a minimum. When I hook my cathode and anode up can I parallel off of the main voltage supply to say 2 other locations on the anode and cathode? If I remember correctly voltage in a series DC circuit is additive and voltage in a parallel DC circuit stays the same and the amps /current flow is additive. So, if I put the main power supply in the middle and branched off the main supply to each end of the anode and cathode would this help or hurt. But, by doing this may short the circuit out easily? Have you heard of anyone trying this? And the main thing is does it help any to do this? It seems like it would but I am not sure. I will be using lead as my anode and it is solid. I don't know if it would help on the anode, but could it hurt? Just alligator clip over to each end of the anode and cathode from the supply in the middle? After thinking about this, it may give you more current flow say if you have your anode and cathode too far apart. About what distance apart (anode/cathode) do you set your cell up to run?
Have you ever made a mistake and tried stripping a karat piece? If you have what does it look like, does it turn dark or keep it's gold color?
One more question and I will stop bothering you. About how many seconds do you allow your circuit to run. Or how many seconds does it take to strip down a heavy necklace when cell is set up right? Is it best to keep the necklaces hooked together so the current can form a loop on each piece. I can see this helping if the necklace it's touching is only touching another piece in one place that has a good connection with the cathode? Thanks Tom for taking the time.
Oneal58

 

[Oneal58]

Oneal58:

Hello, I received your email and I tried to reply. Was wondering if you got the message I sent back to you?

I live near Charleston - about 2 hours from you.

I would be glad to help you in any way that I can.

kadriver

Hi kadriver, I missed your post untill now. I very much thank you for answering my question about the Niric Acid. If you would do that for me it would be a great help. What is the best way to contact you to get the particulars together to meet. I hate you having to drive half-way for me. That is really doing me a big favor. Should I contact you through email or is there another way that's better. I know with the identify theft the way it is now you have to be careful anymore. I would love to meet with you. My wife always tags along with me, if that's OK. Let me know the best way to set this up. I have been to North Charleston many times. But thats about where my knowledge of Charleston ends. When I was young I would stay with my cousin during the summer a couple of weeks. We would go over to the airport and watch the airplanes land and take off. I see you are a pilot. Many years ago I started on my pilots license and ran out of money and had to stop. I couldn't, in good conscience see putting the money in something that I loved while I had kids that needed things, family to support. I went to ground school at Tech and went on to take the test in Conway, S.C.. It's a little airport right off US378 before you get to Conway. I flew until I was ready to go get tested and that is where I had to stop because of $$. I had dreams of becomming a crop duster but just never made enough money to make that dream happen. This has been 38 years ago and it's getting too late to pick it back up. I don't think I could pass the physical now anyway. The reason I was training in a Cessna 172 and not a trainer was that I was a member of the Civil Air Patrol. We had a member there that was a Flight Instructor. We used the Civil Air Patrol Plane and I would only have to pay the Instructor by the hour and put the fuel into the Cessna 172. So getting the hours in like that was very reasonable. We had several CAP Members doing the same thing that I was doing with the airplane/Instructor at the same time. But then it was noticed by the home office that too many hours was being put on the airplane above the required amount of hours each month. So, that ended the cheap flying lessons and that pretty much put an end to my flying. But let me know what the best way of contacting you on the site is. I very much look forward to meeting with you. I thank you for doing this for me. Not many will go as far out of their way to help someone as you have offered. And especially spend their own money to help someone. So, I would very much like to meet with you.
Oneal58

 

[butcher]

I also think Kadriver is great for extending his hand in friendship here, that is a fair price, and very nice gesture.


I love to hear the auctioneer sing, but try to stay away from them, as you say seems like the price can go up before I can put my hand down, or I just do not know when to quit raising my hand.

 

[Oneal58]

Hi Butcher, I realize that a hand has been offered in friendship and it is very much appreciated and humbly accepted. Not too many will extend a helping hand like that anymore when it involves a person's time and really his money. So, I am very greatful and humbled by kadriver's offer.
As far as your bidding at auction, it very well could be a little of both. Years ago on ebay people would get caught up in bidding wars. This also still happens at regular auctions with buyer's who have little bidding experience. This would usually end up with one or the other bidder paying far too much for an item. Lots of times buyer's remorse would set in and a lot of refunds had to be given during these times. At my Auctions I had a rule, when the hammer went down the bidder owned the item. If the item fell into 1,000 pieces after it was in his/her hand, they owned all 1,000 pieces of it. A new buyer has to pay their due's to become a smart buyer. I felt like it was the buyer's job to bid rationally, not the Auctioneer's job to teach him/her. This doesn't happen too much anymore though.
Ebay, has educated most potential buyers. On Ebay anymore buyer's wait untill the last few seconds in an auction to bid and know enough now to place all they plan to bid on the item before hand. Anymore, Ebay gives the other bidder a chance to bid again before ending the auction. This has slowed down the amount of snipping as there was before the changes too. You can use a program now to bid for you. Just place the amount you are willing to pay for the item and the program will increase your bid without you being at home or even on the computer. So when someone is trying to snipe the item the program will increase your bid automatically until it reaches your maximum bid amount. That's even if the auction has timed out. I like this about Ebay but I feel that the expenses that ebay charges are getting too high now for the seller. He is having to pass some of this cost on to the buyer. With the last increase recently, you have to pay for your pictures you load if more than 1, even if you host them yourself. They also charge a shipping fee charge which I think is rediculous. Yes,on top of those fees there are listing fees, picture fees, selling out of the country fees, % of shipping fees, final value fees, and then Paypal Fees. I probably have left out a couple that I don't remember. But if you have something that needs to be in front of a lot of people, Ebay is still the way to go. I don't think that Ebay is taking into consideration that the item being sold has to be found, bought, cleaned up, work involved in listing and answering emails, expenses in fuel and time involved finding item. And of course you end up paying too much for an item no matter who you are from time to time. So you do not make money on every item you sell. On Ebay forum, I have talked to people that say their Ebay bill each month is more than they are making. So, I believe Ebay has hit the wall. They have reached a place that anymore increases will shut a lot of sellers down. Really the new charges that Ebay has applied is one of the reasons I decided to start refinning my Karat Gold instead of just selling it on Ebay. I have sold and bought tens of thousands of items during my career as an Auctioneer. But knowledge is a must to make money at anything you do. Just like refinning, you have to have the knowledge to make any money at it, as you are well aware of. You have got to get it right or you will ruin your reputation at the very start. If you can't be trusted or someone questions your competance in refinning you have lost the battle before it begins. That's why I am so very thankful for all of you here on this site. You do not have to answer any of these questions. You take your time and energy to help others who has an interest in refinning. Knowing that, in a sense they will be your competition in one way or the other. But you still do it. So, that makes each and every one of you very special to me. Oh well, wife says she wants me to watch a movie with her. Talk to you later Butcher.
Oneal

 

[qst42know]

I love to hear the auctioneer sing, but try to stay away from them, as you say seems like the price can go up before I can put my hand down, or I just do not know when to quit raising my hand.

I know a few hyper speed auctioneers that if they saw 5 hands go up they could call an increment for each before the last in line had a chance to pull their hand down. You have to watch the quick ones very closely. :mrgreen:

 

[Oneal58]

Hi Tom,

I just finished incinerating a crucible of gold plated necklaces to go into the Sulphuric Cell. What I ended up with was what you are looking at in the image I am loading. Do you have any idea what went wrong? The heat turned all of the gold to a grey color. No gold color is there. Maybe on just one necklace there is a little gold color left but that's it. The gold dissapeared? Have any idea? These necklaces are the ones that are magnetic?The URL is below. I don't know if I did this right or not? But you should be able just to post the address in your browser and pull the picture up? Thanks, Oneal58

Oneal58,
I’ll take these one at a time and do what I can.
1. So, what voltage to start with, 6volts, 12volts or other? You said when voltage drops to zero the work is done, stripping of the gold plating has been completed.

A standard 12 volt supply should do fine.
Actually I said when the current drops to zero.

Can you explain why that is?
It is the reaction of the acid on the gold that allows the current to flow, so when the gold is removed from the jewellery the current will drop to “near” zero.
If you leave the jewellery in the cell after the current drops it will slowly attack the base metals dissolving them into solution. This is why you need to watch and remove the jewellery when the current drops near zero.

2. I know that some of the gold plated items I have are made of what looks like brass through and through. Isn't brass a pretty good conductor on its own? So, why would the amperage drop to zero when the gold plate is gone and it still has the brass there to use as a conductor?

Yes brass is a good conductor in normal circumstances. But remember we are dealing with sulfuric acid as the conductor and as long as we keep base metals out of solution the resistance will be very high preventing most current flow.

3. Are there some gold plated items made of zinc?

I’m sure there are some but I can’t say for sure.

4. I have many pieces that look like the metal underneath is brass. These pieces are not magnetic, but they look to be made of brass.
Could this be gold filled that isn't marked in any way?

I don’t know the answer to this question.

5. I would not even mention this because Harold has already told me to incinerate the pieces. I believe wholeheartedly that, I do not question it whatsoever. But, I have some watch band tops that are absolutely dirty beyond belief. They are, what looks to be 1/4 full of krud. On the band tops particularly and only, would a wash in Lye hurt them, only the watch band tops? Or will incinerating get all that krud too?

If it were me, I would mix a little soap and water and with a toothbrush remove as much excess filth as I could before incineration. But that is just me. Wear gloves.

6. Could I use enclosed ice packs to pack around my vessel to try and keep the electrolyte cool or is this too dangerous (or too stupid) to have the ice packs (water) too close to the sulphuric acid? Or maybe sit the cell on a separator of some kind so no water could get to the cell? But, if I had one burst for some reason, I know that would be bad even if it was on the floor!

Is it safe to smoke a cigarette while putting gas in your car? I know I can throw a lit match into a full can of gas and the match will go out. No boom most of the time.

Get the point? You can do it many times with no problem, just like the match and gas can. It only takes that one time, a mistake or accident happens and you will wish you never had water near sulfuric acid. The out gassing can be very fast and cause a lot of injuries before you even know what happened.

What happens if your wife would throw some water on a grease fire on the stove?

Why tempt faith? Just DON’T do it. Take a break when it gets warm.

7. So, this is probably a bad idea, right? Or could be just plain stupid, but I needed to ask?

Bad idea for sure.
The only stupid questions are when you don’t ask when you don’t know!

I would rather spend hours explaining safety to someone than spend a single minute thinking about them in the hospital because I didn’t have the time to explain safe practices to them.

Tom C.

 

[kadriver]

Oneal58:

If you guide your cursor over my name to the left of this post and hover it there, a drop down menu will appear. From this menu select email kadriver.

In your email to me, please put your email address in the text of the message. I will email you back and we can get connected that way.

I look forward to hearing from you.

By the way, here is a picture of a gold bar that I finished about an hour ago. I like to work late at night into the early morning hours. It is quiet and there are no phone calls or other interuptions.

kadriver

 

[qst42know]

I just finished incinerating a crucible of gold plated necklaces to go into the Sulphuric Cell. What I ended up with was what you are looking at in the image I am loading. Do you have any idea what went wrong? The heat turned all of the gold to a grey color.

Base metal brass plate will oxidize away, and base metals under the gold may oxidize and the gold may be in the dust produced from the incineration.

I haven't processed the very low grade stuff but assume the incineration needs done from below at a temperature that will destroy any lacquer, organics, and oils but carefully to save any dust produced.

How you incinerated matters. And it does for gold filled as well. Did you use a torch from above for your incineration or heat from below?

 

[Harold_V]

It's entirely possible the heat allowed the gold to migrate to the base metal. It's not lost, just not necessarily visible. Gold migration is a well known phenomenon. It may or may not respond to being stripped if it migrated inward, but it could be recovered by dissolution of the base metal. If they were, indeed, just plated, there will be precious little gold present. If they are gold filled, a stripping cell is the wrong approach, so lose that idea and get on with dissolving the base metal with your choice of solvent. Use nitric if you have it at your disposal. It's fast and efficient.

Harold

 

[qst42know]

If you incinerated from above in that melt dish, the slight signs of color may be some of your gold.

 

[Oneal58]

Hi qst42know,
You are exactly right, that's why a smart bidder will wait to see who is bidding and the smart bidder will always follow the Auctioneer to see where he is getting his bids from. Some Auctioneers will just pull the bids out of the air. If you see this happening it's best just to ask the Auctioneer out loud, in front of the crowd, WHERE ARE YOU AT? This will normally slow this type behavior down if he knows someone is following him closely. I have never liked this type behavior by Auctioneers. They give the profession a bad name and leave a bad taste in the buyer's mouth. I don't blame the bidder, I just will never attend that auction again, if I see this happening. But I always will make a remark to the Auctioneer why he will never see me again at his auction. The Auctioneer needs to hear this from a bidder. Need to try and get him to clean his act up if he is going to gain the public"s trust. If I am at an auction and I catch the auctioneer doing this I will do what I suggested above. It will embarrass the auctioneer if he gets caught taking bids from Ghost Bidders.
But just remember, not all Auctioneers are like this. Most of us have enough integrity to keep the auction clean. But, it still happens far too often.
Thanks, Oneal58

I love to hear the auctioneer sing, but try to stay away from them, as you say seems like the price can go up before I can put my hand down, or I just do not know when to quit raising my hand.

I know a few hyper speed auctioneers that if they saw 5 hands go up they could call an increment for each before the last in line had a chance to pull their hand down. You have to watch the quick ones very closely. :mrgreen:

 

[Oneal58]

Thanks qst42know for your reply. It is puzzling that it seems that I burned off all the gold? I guess I need to run the pieces to see if there is any gold there? Can you tell by the amount of powder I should get from the necklaces in the picture?
Thanks,
Oneal58

If you incinerated from above in that melt dish, the slight signs of color may be some of your gold.

 

[Oneal58]

Hi Harold_V,
It's good to hear from you Harold, I thought you had forgot about me? Did you get the post that I posted for you? I have your name on it and there are several questions there that I have been told that you would be able to answer. Could you please take a look at it, I would very much appreciate it if you would. I am at the point of trying to run my first Sulphuric Cell run. I think I am going to leave the necklaces that are magnetic alone, for right now. This incineration was done on some of the pieces that are magnetic. When I incinerate the non-ferrous jewelry pieces this darkening/greyish coloring, disappearing of the gold color, does not happen? So, I am seeing that if a necklace/jewelry has a lot of ferrous metals in it the darkening/color change occurs. As you posted, gold migrating into the ferrous base metals. And if the necklace is non-ferrous this type darkening/gold color loss did not occur. So, I would have to dissolve all the metal in the necklaces to recover the little bit of goldplate that could be there but just migrated into the ferrous base metals. Which is not worth the acid used or the effort which would be involved. Later on, I may dissolve a few of the magnetic jewelry pieces that turned grey just for the sake of experience gained.
Harold, if you could take a look at the post I put up for you it would be appreciated. Or I can post again if that's the better route for you?
Thank you Harold,
Oneal58

It's entirely possible the heat allowed the gold to migrate to the base metal. It's not lost, just not necessarily visible. Gold migration is a well known phenomenon. It may or may not respond to being stripped if it migrated inward, but it could be recovered by dissolution of the base metal. If they were, indeed, just plated, there will be precious little gold present. If they are gold filled, a stripping cell is the wrong approach, so lose that idea and get on with dissolving the base metal with your choice of solvent. Use nitric if you have it at your disposal. It's fast and efficient.

Harold

 

[Oneal58]

Hi qst42know,
I did incinerate from above down onto the material. I did notice a variation in the color of the plating between the non-ferrous metals and the ferrous metals. I just assumed it had something to do with the karat of the plating? This plating could have very well been brass plating. Then on top of that I incinerated from above?
I also used Borax off the shelf in Wal-Mart. Does anyone know if the Borax off the shelf is good enough to use as a flux? When I was treating/seasoning my crucible I did not get an even thin flow on my crucible as I have seen on Lazersteve's site? You can see in my image that there are little spots that I could not get to melt.
I have 2 different types of torches. I have the acetylene/oxygen and I have a mapp gas torch. I used the mapp gas torch to try to season the crucible with Borax and also to incinerate the ferrous jewelry pieces. Was I getting enough heat from the mapp gas torch? My crucible would have a dull red glow with the lights off?
As far as the dust produced, I didn't see any gold dust in the bottom of the crucible.
Thanks qst42know,
Oneal58

I just finished incinerating a crucible of gold plated necklaces to go into the Sulphuric Cell. What I ended up with was what you are looking at in the image I am loading. Do you have any idea what went wrong? The heat turned all of the gold to a grey color.

Base metal brass plate will oxidize away, and base metals under the gold may oxidize and the gold may be in the dust produced from the incineration.

I haven't processed the very low grade stuff but assume the incineration needs done from below at a temperature that will destroy any lacquer, organics, and oils but carefully to save any dust produced.

How you incinerated matters. And it does for gold filled as well. Did you use a torch from above for your incineration or heat from below?

 

[Oneal58]

Absolutely makes your mouth run water kadriver. This is my end goal! Waiting to hear from you.
Thanks, Oneal

Oneal58:

If you guide your cursor over my name to the left of this post and hover it there, a drop down menu will appear. From this menu select email kadriver.

In your email to me, please put your email address in the text of the message. I will email you back and we can get connected that way.

I look forward to hearing from you.

By the way, here is a picture of a gold bar that I finished about an hour ago. I like to work late at night into the early morning hours. It is quiet and there are no phone calls or other interuptions.

kadriver

 

[kadriver]

Oneal58:

When I first started refining about a year ago, I set up a sulfuric acid stripping cell and ran gold plated items through it for some 20 hours, give or take.

I found a post that described the cell clean out proceedure. Using that process, I recovered a few grams of gold from the stripping cell. It was very satisfying to get those few grams.

It was fun, and a great refining experience. But for the amount of time it took to get those few grams of gold it just seemed impractical - to me.

On the other hand, this is probably the only practical way to remove the gold from gold plated items.

I still have the stripping cell components, but I have never set it up and ran it since that first time.

For some, running a stripping cell may be the only source of gold that can be had.

I would encourage you to proceed with your stripping cell. I can verify that It does produce gold for refining.

Also, here is the post of the first gold bar I refined from karat scrap jewelry that I mentioned to you.

EDIT:

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=8322

END EDIT

It has many pages and gives a detailed account with lots of photos of the process I used as a first-time refiner attempting to refine my first gold bar. It was done under the guidance of this forum.

During this refining I experienced a mishap that resulted in the loss of some of my gold. I was performing a second treatment of the inquarted gold in concentrated nitric acid after the first treatment with dilute 50/50 nitric.

There are many posts from some of the most experienced refiners on the forum as they helped me through the process.

kadriver

 

[niteliteone]

November 20th, 2011, 1:01 pm
Thanks Tom, that has cleared that up for me. I appreciate your help and everyone's help here. I am sure thankful this site is here.
Tom, I have made a cell and I have used #10 bare copper ground wire as my frame. I then took and stripped telephone wire and made a basket weave pattern to lay my material on. I don't have any sides or front on the frame. My thinking is to keep the Faraday effect to a minimum. ...
Oneal58

1) When I hook my cathode and anode up can I parallel off of the main voltage supply to say 2 other locations on the anode and cathode?

Yes you can but it’s not necessary. All that is needed it a GOOD connection on each.

2) If I remember correctly voltage in a series DC circuit is additive and voltage in a parallel DC circuit stays the same and the amps /current flow is additive. So, if I put the main power supply in the middle and branched off the main supply to each end of the anode and cathode would this help or hurt.

Not necessary, can only bring more problems than it possibly could solve.

3) But, by doing this may short the circuit out easily? Have you heard of anyone trying this? And the main thing is does it help any to do this? It seems like it would but I am not sure. I will be using lead as my anode and it is solid. I don't know if it would help on the anode, but could it hurt?

Again, Not necessary, possibly can bring more problems than it could solve.

4) Just alligator clip over to each end of the anode and cathode from the supply in the middle? After thinking about this, it may give you more current flow say if you have your anode and cathode too far apart. About what distance apart (anode/cathode) do you set your cell up to run?

My cell is 4” wide and I hang the cathode on one side and the anode on the other.

5) Have you ever made a mistake and tried stripping a karat piece? If you have what does it look like, does it turn dark or keep its gold color?

Never done this. I don’t know the answer.

6) One more question and I will stop bothering you. About how many seconds do you allow your circuit to run. Or how many seconds does it take to strip down a heavy necklace when cell is set up right? Is it best to keep the necklaces hooked together so the current can form a loop on each piece. I can see this helping if the necklace its touching is only touching another piece in one place that has a good connection with the cathode?

I’ve never timed the process, I just watch the process and when the current drops I will stir the pieces with a glass rod, watch the ammeter and remove the pieces when the current drops and stays low.


I haven’t experimented much with this process. My main concern is not to reinvent the wheel, but to understand what is happening IN the process and then adjust my parameters to get the setup that produces the best repeatable results.
But I did start with the basic setup first, as should you. That way any questions you ask can easily be answered without trying to troubleshoot the system before the process.

Tom C.

 

[Oneal58]

Hi kadriver, I will be ecstatic when I get to post my picture along with yours and the other members, with a big picture of my first bar. Yes, I believe you are right. Start at the ground level and work my way up, just for the experience. That's my plan, but believe me it's tempting to go for the gold, and skip the cell stripping. kadriver, I just want to say that I just can't express how greatful I am to you for being willing to help me. Heck, you don't know me from Adams House Cat and invited me over to your house to spend the day. You just don't know how badly I would have loved to do that. But I feel it's best to let you get to know me before I impose myself on you and your family for a day. But thank you for the offer, I have questioned myself many times since our conversation today whether I should have taken you up on your offer. Believe me I wanted to badly. But I felt like it would be selfish of me to take you up on the offer. I want to wait until you get to know me. And if it's OK with you then may I take you up on that offer? I would be very greatful to you. I would love to see your setup and ask you a ton of questions. Thank you kadriver and I will see you tomorrow in Monks Corner.
Oneal58

Oneal58:

When I first started refining about a year ago, I set up a sulfuric acid stripping cell and ran gold plated items through it for some 20 hours, give or take.

I found a post that described the cell clean out proceedure. Using that process, I recovered a few grams of gold from the stripping cell. It was very satisfying to get those few grams.

It was fun, and a great refining experience. But for the amount of time it took to get those few grams of gold it just seemed impractical - to me.

On the other hand, this is probably the only practical way to remove the gold from gold plated items.

I still have the stripping cell components, but I have never set it up and ran it since that first time.

For some, running a stripping cell may be the only source of gold that can be had.

I would encourage you to proceed with your stripping cell. I can verify that It does produce gold for refining.

Also, here is the post of the first gold bar I refined from karat scrap jewelry that I mentioned to you.

EDIT:

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=8322

END EDIT

It has many pages and gives a detailed account with lots of photos of the process I used as a first-time refiner attempting to refine my first gold bar. It was done under the guidance of this forum.

During this refining I experienced a mishap that resulted in the loss of some of my gold. I was performing a second treatment of the inquarted gold in concentrated nitric acid after the first treatment with dilute 50/50 nitric.

There are many posts from some of the most experienced refiners on the forum as they helped me through the process.

kadriver