thinning borate help

[socorban]

Hi all, im semi new to this recovery stuff. Ive been accumulating scrap for some time but decided to recover for myslef recently. At the moment im using a cell for recovery, i have alot of pins and what not. I plan to use aqua regia or equivilent later for all my boards.

But on to my problem, im having issues with melting the gold. I see referances to "borax" often, isnt "sodium borate" the same? I was told to use "sodium borate" as my flux, the gold melts and beads but the flux is way to thick, i cant pick out the gold beads with tweezers or pour out the flux, is there anything that can thin out the flux to make it more managable?? It takes alot of work crushing up the flux to get my gold out if i cant even get it out of the crucible before it turns to glass.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[lazersteve]

Hello and Welcome to the forum,

I buy plain old 20 Mule Team Borax from Wallie World (Wal Mart yellow and green box with a team of mules on the front), it's in the cleaning isle. I don't mix it with anything I use it straight out of the box. I do have a special technique of appling the heat to help cut down on the amount of Borax that flies away when I begin torching the gold. I have included a couple of snapshots below to demonstrate:

First I place the thrice cleaned gold into a double coffee filter then add a teaspoon of borax. I roll the coffee filters up like a taco in a back an forth motion to mix the gold evenly into the borax. If the gold clumps up I try and break the clumps and mix the borax in. If there is not enough borax to evenly mix with the gold I add a little at a time repeating the rolling motion until the gold is mixed evenly, with no clumps, with equal portions of borax. I put 1/2 a teaspoon of borax in the bottom of my crucible which is about the size of a small styrofoam cup. I fold the coffee filters in half and gently dump the whole shebang into a crucible.

I then sprinkle a little more borax on top to cover the gold completely and spray a squirt or two of distilled H2O (water) on top to slightly moisten the borax. Here's what it looks like at this point in the game:

Now I put on my goggles, gloves, welding glasses, and I fire up the torch

Setting the flame to a sharp point, but easy on the O2 at first.

I start heating the outside of the crucible first in a circular motion. This starts the borax heating to makes it start melting. Work your way into the crucible top slowly and from a distance at first to prevent the gold flakes and borax from flying all over the room due to the pressure of the torch flame. Heat in circular motion around the top ring of the gold/borax until it crusts over (1-2 seconds). Work your way into the center of the crucible and heat for a few seconds more until the borax turns into a glowing red liquid with gold in it. Once it starts to flow pull the torch back and use a pair of long dental tweezers to work the crusted gold/borax off the outer edges of the crucible into the molten center. Try not to get the tweezers into the molten portion of the mix as it sticks to everything. This is very important as the flux will weld to the crucible if you apply too much heat too quickly or if you don't scrape the edges into the center as you work the gold into a ball. It's takes some practice to perfect this part of the technique. It helps to roll the flux ball as you work it into a solid borax encased gold ball. Once all the borax and gold are fused together (and not to the crucible ) you end up with this:

In the photo I have transfered the flux/gold ball into a clean cupel for the next step. Now turn the torch on with a fine sharp point and you will hear the high pitched sound of the O2. Heat the ball in the cupel from the bottom up in a circular motion as before. The flux will stay red hot and molten as you circle the ball working your way up to the top of the ball. It will all melt into a pool in the center of the cupel. You can chase any small gold BB's ( they look green thru the welders goggles) into the center by making quick circles around the molten flux. Don't stop this process until you have rounded up all the small BB's in the molten flux. Remember keep the torch circling the cupel as you work. If you used an excess of flux the gold will try to hide under the flux and shield it from the heat of the torch. You have to keep the gold in the center molten to get all the impurities out. The process is done when the gold pool in the center of the cupel moves freely around the cupel bowl as a single molten ball. If the flux gets too deep just pour some off into a used cupel to expose the gold and continue heating. When the gold forms a free moving single ball you can stop torching and prepare the tweezers to pull the button out of the flux while the flux is still red hot (let cool 5-10 seconds then grab the button). Put the button into a clean cupel with a dash of borax and heat again unitl the surface of the gold is free of discolorations or debris. The remaining borax should absorb into the cupel with the last of the slag and base metals. Lastly pour the molten gold into a form or mold (made of graphite or steel) for weighing.

I'm going to put a video of this process together for those on the forum to see.

Steve

 

[Noxx]

Very nice ! 8)
Nice job steve ! I will be the first to watch the video.

 

[socorban]

wow what the heck am i doing wrong here, i stripped about 4 pounds of pins with an electrolyte cell, precipitated it and filtered it into 3 prewet coffee filters ( idunno why 3 i was told to do it this way) Then i put the coffe filters with filtered gold precitpitent on a hot plate and let it dry. Just before its completely dry i add a little sodium borate.

After it dries the coffe filter is kinda bonded to the hot plate so i scraped it out and put small batches in crucible, added some borate, a dab of rubbing alchohol and lit it till it crusted the borate. Then i hit it with the torch around the endges and slowly into the center, eventually its a moltem glob in the center, i kept adding more filtered to form a larger gold beed. however i cannot see any gold, what happend? not only that but the borate "welds" to the crucible, ive tried many methods to make it not do that but i cant seem to "ball it up" in the center, let alone see a gold bead in there, i know theres gold in the mis somewhere, there has to be, but whats going on here? the boarx is blackish im assuming from the burnt up filter, im new so i duunno were to go now.

Help?

 

[lazersteve]

Socorban,
I'll be melting some gold from my electrolytic cell soon. I'll document the process with lots of photos to help you out. I'm assuming you bought your cell plans from Loren320 by your description of the process you use. I've modified his plans slightly. I don't use his smelting instructions since I've developed my own that work better.

Also note that the images above are from a 5# batch of high grade ISA fingers using an acid-peroxide mix to free the gold from the finger boards. The final weight of the above process was 11 grams of 23kt gold (see photo). It was the first button I had ever sold! My gold comes out much purer now than that particular batch turned out. I have fine tuned the acid-peroxide ratios since then.

Keep an eye out for my post on the eletrolytic process. Out of respect for Loren, I won't disclose his basic kit plans or chemical ratios. I will list the mods I've made to the cell (with photos) and show you how I smelt the black powder from the cell.

Steve

 

[socorban]

Well i have lost all respect for loren, i already knew the basics, and bought that just for the mixture and melting solution, and that jerk wont respond to any emails even though he puts 100% customer support in his listing. I emailed him at least 7 times about the same thing, exactly what i posted here, and i even went into ebay cuase hes sellin plansa again and sent an item question and asked him why he wont respond, go figure i havnt heard from him.

SO anyone else on here beware!!!! Dont buy those plans!!! The guy is a joke and wont help! Ill tell you how to set it up and it seems laz is gonna show us how to get the gold out.


Thanks laz, i owe ya one.

 

[lazersteve]

Scoroban,

Pardon me for saying, but I would not be so hasty with your judgement on Loren. He is probably not responding because he is not at a computer very often. Shame on him for poor communications. The last I heard from him he was operating a gold dig operation out west somewhere for a few weeks at a time. He sent me an inivitation but I haven't made it out there yet. I'm sure his free time ( like most of ours) is very limited. He is a good guy and tries to do his best to please everyone just like any of us would I'm sure. I bought his plans for the same reasons you did.. and I'm very pleased. We communicated after the sale and I took the initiative from there to figure out the rest. For $25 bucks I didn't expect the guy to walk me thru the entire process until I got it, I did that part on my own. Use what works and ditch the rest.

In short, no one person has all the correct solutions in this kind of undertaking... that's what the community forum is all about, learning from each other. It's here so we can all benefit from each others successes and failures. As you well know there are at least two other guys that are selling spin off plans of Lorens right now on ebay. In my eyes the chemical mix formula and general setup information were well worth the $25 bucks. So he didn't get everything right.. he's only human. Take the good from the plans then move on with what you've learned and make your own improvements. I'll do my part to help make you a happier camper if you will do your part by moving on.

Best Regards,

Steve

 

[socorban]

Yea i agree, i understand and you make a good point. I got those plans a looooooooong time ago however and i didnt have anyquestions about anything, like i said i already understood the general concepts. I only had trouble with the borate being so thick and wrote several emails over several months.

I was especially agitated last night because i was workin on some at that time, once again there all kinds of gold bb's in there but the borate is just so thick they wont melt together and im having a hard time get the boarte to pour even when its cherry hot.

i am goin to follow what ever method you lay out you got some nice stuff there, but i still need to figure out how to get this stuff out and in one lump yet as well. I may need to invest in a better torch i think as well. What gas on a lerger tank scale is the equivilent to mapp gas? or another clean burning?

Thanks again

 

[jmelson]

What gas on a lerger tank scale is the equivilent to mapp gas? or another clean burning?

I use Propylene from Cee Kay, a national gas and welding distributor. They sell it as a generic replacement for MAPP. I bought a 5 Lb can, and it has lasted me through several Oxygen tanks and 2 tank size upgrades. I now have a 40 cu ft oxygen tank, and that one Propylene tank is still going strong. The flame looks a little different than Oxy-Acetylene, they have a flyer that explains how to set the flame mixture if you are used to Oxy-Acetylene. I use the Propylene mostly due to some safety concerns with Acetylene, but the liquid storage makes it a LOT more convenient and cheaper, too!

 

[lazersteve]

When comes down to it straight MAPP gas won't cut it. You need more O2 to really get it god and hot. Sure it will melt the gold, but when you shield it with molten borax and toss it in a sunken ceramic dish it's an unfair fight.

I evened the odds with an OXY/ACT rig. It cost me around $400 to get into it ( googles, gloves, igniter, lab cylinders full, caddy, gauges and hoses). The bottles are very cheap to fill only about $8-10 bucks each at the local welding supply shop. They last between 1 week to 1 month depending on how hard I use them.

I just recently invested in two more spare cylinders (about $100 more bucks) so I don't ever run out in the middle of a job.

I think if you get some real heat going on and perfect your technique your problems will go away.

The only other thing to note is that is takes a lot of scrap to get a good sized button. Average pins and plated items only yield about 1 gram per pound while military and aerospace grade equipment yields between 2 to 3 grams per pound.
Here's what high grade scrap looks like before the bath:

Poor grade stuff like cheap plated jewelry, partially plated connectors, and newer consumer grade pins produce considerablly less.

I run my electrolytic cell for about a month about 3-4 hours a week before I even think about filtering and melting the gold.

Here's a shot of my cell today:

It contains between 15 and 30 grams of very pure gold. I haven't cleaned it out in over a month.

Be sure to remove your anode and cathodes before storing the cell and always store tightly sealed as the acid will draw H2O from the air.

Store the cathode submerged in some distilled water to keep it from growing an oxide film:

I've got a lot more for you to see, sit tight and keep an eye on the forum for my new posts.

Steve

 

[jmelson]

After it dries the coffe filter is kinda bonded to the hot plate so i scraped it out and put small batches in crucible, added some borate, a dab of rubbing alchohol and lit it till it crusted the borate. Then i hit it with the torch around the endges and slowly into the center, eventually its a moltem glob in the center, i kept adding more filtered to form a larger gold beed. however i cannot see any gold, what happend? not only that but the borate "welds" to the crucible, ive tried many methods to make it not do that but i cant seem to "ball it up" in the center, let alone see a gold bead in there, i know theres gold in the mis somewhere, there has to be, but whats going on here? the boarx is blackish im assuming from the burnt up filter, im new so i duunno were to go now.

Help?

What kind of torch are you using? I think you might not be getting it hot enough. I didn't know the flux wasn't supposed to melt to the crucible. If you add enough borax, you get a big glob, but when it is hot enough you CAN pour everything out, hot. I use a big pair of slip-joint pliers to pick up the whole crucible and turn it over. I usually have to hold the crucible nearly upside down and point the flame up into the crucible to get the flux hot enough to flow. If the button is big enough, and nearly pure gold, it will be really heavy, and pull down through the flux. I let it fall onto an aluminum plate. The oxide layer on the aluminum prevents it from sticking. I usually get the gold hot enough to glow brilliant white. It looks kind of greenish through the goggles. This drives off impurities. When I use zinc to precipitate the gold, I get white streamers coming off the gold and the flux when it gets this hot. When the streamers stop, I then pour the button out. Sometimes I have to chip the flux a little with an exacto knife to get little stragglers out of the flux, if they didn't merge with the big button.

If my button is dark, I can sometimes crack a "shell" of flux off it by squeezing with the pliers, or I can drop it in concentrated acid, and it will be clean the next day.

Good luck,

 

[lazersteve]

If my button is dark, I can sometimes crack a "shell" of flux off it by squeezing with the pliers, or I can drop it in concentrated acid, and it will be clean the next day.

Jon,
If you follow up at this stage with another run in a clean cupel and a sprinkle of fresh borax and you can get the shine you are after. Crusting is a sign of impurity. Reheat the button in a fresh cupel and be sure the slag all melts away into the cupel walls. I sometimes carefully use a wooden skewer to stir the molten gold on really stubborn batches to allow the carbon to reduce the impurities. Then I follow up with another sprinkle of borax for good measure. When the molten gold moves freely around the cupel while you swirl the torch in in circular motion you know you are there. Thru the googles you should not see any 'skin' on the white hot gold.

Steve

 

[socorban]

Kinda fell off the topic but i got a new question relative to this. I have 20 mules team borax, but i also have lab grade sodium borate, which is borax but more pure. Any way I still have some issues with stray gold beads in my flux, i get a larger bead yes but theres many lil ones all ove rthe cupel and its a pain to workl worm em together,

I heard you can use "sodium carbonate" or soda ash to thin out the borax a lil bit and make it more fluidic when smelting, also slow down its solidification rate, anyone use this before, does it work????

Its not my torch, i use an acetalyne rig and it gets hot oenough to make the cupel funky so im definiatly getting the heat.

 

[Harold_V]

Soda ash will help, but it has some negative attributes. For one, it's very aggressive in that it will dissolve your melting dish rapidly. It also acts as a reducer, so you'll end up with much dirtier gold (lower in quality) than you might have without it. A larger volume of borax would help, plus holding the temperature long enough for the beads to agglomerate would be helpful, too, but that's a tall order when torch melting.

The key to success here is to chemically refine the black sludge before melting. By that method, you don't carry the contamination through the process. When it comes time to melt the gold, it does so without any fuss, and requires almost no flux. Just enough so the dish is "greasy" and allows the beads to flow easily. The trouble you have is the dirty flux, the dark colors you see in the flux, which are the oxides of base metals it has absorbed from the gold. In a sense, it's helping refine the gold, albeit the *wrong* way.

Harold

 

[socorban]

Doesnt sodium borate (borax) absorb impurities? I assumed it did, i was thinkin i could use the sodium carbonte to get the small amounts, then when i have a large , or larger beads of maybe not as clean gold i can just smelt those with borate itself, my problem is the little gold bb's randomly throughout the dish initially, i can get most of it to melt to the bottom but sometimes theres those beads left over scattered about i can seem to get to form to the bottom.


Not only that, i heard i can use it to "clean" my cupels from the real thick boarte that forms over time and i cant seem to get it out, mybe cuase its cold here and i do it in my unheated garage it solidfies so quick.

 

[Harold_V]

Borax absorbs oxides, yes, but when you reduce them with soda ash, they're put right back in your gold. You can see evidence of that by cleaning what you think is a dish that contains no metals, but is covered with dirty borax residue. Introduce soda ash and heat the dish well, until the soda ash starts dissolving borax. As it liquefies, you'll notice tiny beads start to appear everywhere. That's the oxides being reduced to their metals.

In order to clean melting dishes, you have to get them to red heat, and it helps to do a little stirring with a carbon rod to mix the molten soda ash with the old borax. You may even have to pour the entire mess off once and repeat the operation. It works, and works well. I've cleaned countless melting dishes that were beyond use without the cleaning operation. The cost of cleaning is well repaid by recovered values.

As for cupels, I don't have an opinion. They work very well for absorbing unwanted substances, but they're not generally the tool of choice for refining. They are used, primarily, to absorb lead from assays. Lead, introduced as litharge, oxidizes the charge, reducing the litharge to lead, which acts as a collector. the resulting button is then run in a muffle furnace on a cupel, where the lead is once again converted to litharge, and absorbed by the cupel, along with oxides. They have a capacity, which, once filled, renders them useless for their intended purpose. They may still be good melting dishes, but they will no longer absorb contaminants.

Without refining by some means, the gold extracted by these stripping systems will be of questionable quality. Melting in a cupel is one way to improve your gold, as Steve has so nicely demonstrated, but it's cumbersome when you get involved in large volumes of gold.

The material that comes from these cells is perfect for chemical refining. A boil in nitric to remove unwanted traces, followed by a boil in HCL, then dissolution with AR. The resulting gold should be of excellent quality, likely 9995 or better.

It seems like a long, hard way to go, but it is routine, and happens much quicker than you might imagine. As you progress in extracting, and find you're producing gold in larger and larger volumes, you might keep the process in mind.

Harold

 

[lazersteve]

Harold,

Your posts have drawn me onto your side on the topic of refining vs recovery. For several months now I have been scaling up my operations and have come to this road block your posts mention.. cupels are for small scale processing. I had already moved on, albiet only partially, to using the larger melting dishes (bad habits are hard to break), but I still have been avoiding the inevitable use of the AR. I have the means and knowledge to use it, I had just been content to remain where I was at to avoid it's hazards. You have an excellent point in the fact that the amount of AR is much smaller when processing the gold immeadiately after it is recovered, prior to the smelting stage. I will begin to adopt this new mentality of 'purify'. I will finish up the tutorial on the same track which I started it, using the cupels, but I will shift paradigms for my future batches. Of course, I will be sharing my failures and successes with the forum.

Thank you for the excellent input you have provided to this forum.

You have a gained new student in the art of refining and my utmost respect. I will do my best to learn all I can from you.

Steve

 

[Noxx]

Well for me, I always did refining, mostly never recovery. I bought scrap jewelry gold and I processed it in AR. I only recovered scrap gold from cpu's once

 

[Harold_V]

Well for me, I always did refining, mostly never recovery. I bought scrap jewelry gold and I processed it in AR. I only recovered scrap gold from cpu's once

Like you, I avoided electronic scrap, but, in my time, there was little difficulty finding karat gold. 1980 changed everything----the world suddenly became aware of its value. As a result, these days, things are different.

I've been following the work these guys are doing, and, frankly, I'm impressed. It's not nearly as easy today to buy chemicals as it once was, nor is it easy to find gold. Some real creative thinking has gone into the "new" gold recovering process. While the content is low, diligence and perseverance is obviously paying dividends for those that are willing to pursue electronic scrap.

I'm enjoying watching things unfold. Keep up the good work, guys.

Harold

 

[Harold_V]

Thank you for the excellent input you have provided to this forum.

You have a gained new student in the art of refining and my utmost respect. I will do my best to learn all I can from you.
Steve

Thanks for your kind remarks, Steve. I hope I don't disappoint. My only interest is in sharing what little I learned-----I'm well past the days of refining.

Before you try running any gold in AR, I'd like to talk with you a little. There are some procedures you must follow so you don't dissolve the gold prematurely. Incineration is very much a part of the operation, at the right time. I outlined the basic operations, but left out the details.

I hope you look upon this as a fun and exciting excursion, for it surely is!

For those that haven't experienced precipitation of gold from solution, particularly when using SO2 as a precipitant, this will be most exciting for you. It's as close to gee wiz magic as it gets for those of us that have been around the block a few times. You'll revel in the sight, and enjoy your new found knowledge immensely. The greatest reward, however, is the ease by which your gold will melt once clean and pure.

I look forward to some enjoyable conversations with you folks.

Harold