Randy's Gold Smelting Efforts -- November 2017

Hey Gold Adventurers...

O.K.  So, as winter sets in here in High Kolorado, I wanted something to do in the garage from time to time over the winter.

So recently I bought a baby kiln powered by 2 propane bottles and decided to smelt a bunch of old scrap gold I had collected over time – 14Kt broken chains, a few gold rings I found detecting, some sponge gold balls after burning off the mercury, a few small chunks of gold in host rock, a few lead contaminated pickers, etc.

My new kiln:  



All this scrap weighed 20.9 grams.

Gold melts at 1,943F, so very high.  This little kiln gets that graphite crucible bright red hot in about 10 minutes.......pretty surprising.

This thing gets bright red HOT!



First poor was a little sloppy and the conical mold was cold too.  So, I re-melted the gold with more flux and heated the graphite mold for a better pour.  Sweet.  Got a nice button that after cleaning it up weighs a nice 20.0 grams exactly.

Since I had the kiln hot and going, I decided to re-smelt gold button #1 I did from scrap gold .....from last week’s first smelting attempt.

I let it cook a good 12 to 14 minutes and the pour went great.  This refined button lost .50 grams, from 17.7 to 17.2 grams.  So, must be a little higher purity now.

I can still see that the new, bigger button has a higher purity just from the color.  Easy to see the “color” difference.  One looks a little silvery next to the new one that’s higher gold content and more yellow.

My 2 gold buttons here... On the left is 17.2 grams and on the right is 20.0 grams:



So, great fun so far.       Will research how to refine them down further.

Soon, I’ll roast up a sample of iron pyrite I have (iron sulfides) and then smelt them with some Chapman flux and see IF there’s any hidden gold in it.  If so, I have a lot from that old hard rock mine up Low Pass Gulch to smelt.  

Stay tuned.

Randy  C-17A  

Randy I wonder if there's a bit of gold left in the melted flux material? Probly a little bit , BUT ??? That would be a good representation of your process. The iron pyrite would be another good test! I've seen what they call Sulphfer boil's in the woods as a big yellow spot that NOTHING grows in and I was told there is a small amount of gold in them.....When I was in Southern New Mexico I ran into a man and woman that were digging out one of these boils and getting fine gold. What your doing looks like fun for the Winter month's!!

Russ,

Thanks for looking...

Ha. Well..........I broke the slag down pretty fine with a hammer and visibly looked for gold... I didn't see any in the slag.

Jeff Williams has several very good videos on YouTube about processing, roasting and then smelting iron pyrite to extract gold values trapped inside the pyrite.

That will be a future "experiment".

IF there's any gold in that pyrite, I have a lot here in the garage and know where to get more...

Randy C-17A

Hi Randy:

Looking good and your learning a new task. Good luck with the pyrite.

Dickb

Russ, Dickb,

Well.............a quick update...

I tried roasting and smelting a little iron pyrite, BUT my first 2 attempts didn't go all that well...

I followed the Jeff Williams economy "roasting" method with my pyrite. I built a charcoal fire in a 1-gallon can and then when it was going red hot I put the pyrite in a smaller can, set it right on top of the coals and let it burn out. Went for a good 1 1/2 hrs. The pyrite turned black, so I think it was "roasted" O.K.

The problem is/was my little kiln and crucible was so small that I could put in very little pyrite as they recommend 3 times the volume of Chapman Flux plus a little flux thinner and NOT to fill the crucible more than 1/2 full...

I learned why not more than 1/2 full, as once the mixture melts the flux starts to bubble and boil and it splattered and overflowed the crucible and contaminated/damaged the inside of my kiln some. Ugh...

Both buttons seemed to have zero gold in them when I broke them apart.

SO, either there's no gold in my iron pyrite/sulfides to recover, or...

I didn't smelt the mixture long enough to get good separation, or...

I have such a small sample that I just can't see/ID what tiny bit of gold is there in the slag.

Oh, well... I'll try again sometime soon.

Randy C-17A