Where is my gold ?

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You used WAY too much borax for this melt. Boil your borax in water and it will dissolve. A bit of sulphuric (not too much) wouldn't hurt and if there is gold there it will be left in the bottom. You can pour off the water and replace if it doesn't seem to be dissolving any more.

Oh and prior to this crush the borax in a mortal and pestle or something like that to increase the surface area.
 
Why is the borax black ? With precipitated gold in a clean crucible surely it should be clear ?

Do you have any pictures of the precipitated brown gold powder ? Would be good to see if it looks like 8g
 
kernels ,that's what was made me wondering "what the heck"...in picture below you see the precipitated brown gold powder washed with distilled water ........
 

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That does not look like gold to me. Coming from Aqua Regia I would expect aluminium or tin to be the problem, most other metals should have dissolved.

Precipitated gold forms an easily filtered heavy powder. 8 grams of gold is less than a teaspoon of powder, even when wet, and that looks like a lot more.

I like Anacronism's suggestion. Grind and dissolve the borax, if there is any gold it shouldn't dissolve and it will stay on the bottom. Then when you have some concentrated material a few drops of HCl and a drop of nitric acid should dissolve enough gold to give a solution you could test with stannous chloride.

Read up on testing and stannous.
http://goldrefiningwiki.com/mediawiki/index.php/Stannous_chloride

Göran
 
I would like to go back to the very beginning.
I occasionally have eighteen karat alloy from tourist destinations that will go straight into solution.But they are only about 5%. of what I find.
Most are alloyed with silver which retards such direct digestion.
Just to double check you started with a good alloy it would help to run through how you tested with "Jewelers Acid" and check your field assessment was accurate.
Thick rolled gold or bonded can give quite a nice scratch test if you are not aggressive enough.
 
A few years ago I did a test using a necklace marked 18K, made in Italy. The necklace was a fake. Stannous test was negative. No gold what so ever. While cleaning up my mess, the filter looked a lot like the one posted by the OP. Thanks to the forum, I now test smaller portions.

On a side note, I still have a similar necklace with identical markings, it is a fake also.
 
I really would prefer to take the approach that the material is "as described" and help the guy recover his gold rather than take the view that he has been conned. That's a cop out. When all other avenues have been exhausted THEN look at those options but until then, and given the OPs experience the first approach should be the one adopted.
 
So what is it then? Too much smb and he reduced TONS of base metal out, then didn't wash it properly?

I dont really see any gold prills in the slag, although in tbe first picture it does look like it has a couple golden hued spots, probably from the lighting.
 
I believe the process that's been followed has been wrong, and that's what we should help him rectify Chris mate. It's a classic case of removing all the variables and then and only then thinking that he's been conned.

What you you think?

Jon
 
I much prefer to think he has not been conned. But his picture of the filter brought back an experience I had almost forgotten. While I wasn't conned on the material, it was an interesting experience that I did learn quite a bit from.

anachronism said:
I believe the process that's been followed has been wrong, and that's what we should help him rectify Chris mate. It's a classic case of removing all the variables and then and only then thinking that he's been conned.

What you you think?

Jon
Click to expand...

And this is how I think also, his methods have left him in a bind, and I am curious also to see how it turns out.
 
the simplest hypothesis proposed as an explanation of phenomena is more likely to be the true one than is any other available hypothesis,
You can just about prove it by testing all the possible places your value could have turned up.
If you find nothing you have much less than you thought.
 
justinhcase said:
the simplest hypothesis proposed as an explanation of phenomena is more likely to be the true one than is any other available hypothesis,
You can just about prove it by testing all the possible places your value could have turned up.
If you find nothing you have much less than you thought.
Click to expand...

In your view Justin what is the simplest hypothesis?
 
anachronism said:
justinhcase said:
the simplest hypothesis proposed as an explanation of phenomena is more likely to be the true one than is any other available hypothesis,
You can just about prove it by testing all the possible places your value could have turned up.
If you find nothing you have much less than you thought.
Click to expand...

In your view Justin what is the simplest hypothesis?
Click to expand...
No that would be William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347),
It was his logical hypothesis that underlies most logical thought and most fundamental sciences.
If you can not find it it was not there.
 
justinhcase said:
If you can not find it it was not there to start with.
I have seen nothing to indicate that the original alloy was as stated.
Click to expand...

What about the facts of the case. The OP isn't experienced. He's made mistakes all the way along the process. Wouldn't you need to discount those before taking the easy option of "the gold wasn't there in the first place?"
 
anachronism said:
justinhcase said:
If you can not find it it was not there to start with.
I have seen nothing to indicate that the original alloy was as stated.
Click to expand...

What about the facts of the case. The OP isn't experienced. He's made mistakes all the way along the process. Wouldn't you need to discount those before taking the easy option of "the gold wasn't there in the first place?"
Click to expand...
Logical there are a limited number of possibilities.
It is easy enough to test for the presence of Au, Test each and every possibility.
eliminate each in turn.
The chap assures us that he got a complete digestion, then De-NOXed and precipitated with the correct reagent.
If it quacks like a duck and waders it may well be a duck
Speculation is futile.
Just hope he kept every thing.
But my money is on rolled or plated goods.
It looks like just trace to me.may be looking for micrograms not grams.
When you use more precipitant than is required to drop all your value you just start to drop base metals instead.
 

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