Easy way to chemically remove gold plating, then melt together the gold!

1869er

Full Member
Jan 5, 2009
142
29
Florida
Detector(s) used
White's MXT, Garrett Freedom 2 C.C., 1st detector was a 1970's Compass, Finished a MD Surf PI from a kit - my most recent MD.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Well, I saw another thread started by a jeweler on here... somewhere?? Now I can't find the thread, or else I'd post this there... He showed a different way of doing this using harder to get chemicals... Anyway... I've wondered about this for a while, and I did some research on how to do this a few years ago... But there wasn't much info on it back then... Or else the ones who knew, weren't talking... There's more information now, and multiple ways of doing this... However most techniques use hard to get chemicals, and or, dangerous chemicals or elements... Like mercury for example. This is by far the easiest way to remove gold plating and consolidate it. Keep in mind that this instructable is used on gold plated electronics, however, I'm sure this would work with anything that is gold plated, jewelry, whatever... Take a look at this link... http://www.instructables.com/id/TRASH-TO-TREASURE/ I'm currently in the process of doing this with some gold plated electronics, and junk jewelry, and so far... I'm about half way done, it seems to be working, just as is outlined here... By the way before you decide to start buying a bunch junked cell phones, or computers... I'm realizing real quick that you need (A LOT) of gold plated items to make even a gram of gold. From the looks of my gold metal flake at the halfway mark, I'll be lucky to get a gold fleck, 1/2 the size of a printed "0" by the time I'm finished.
 

Super interesting. Don't know if I'll try it, unless I get a lot more gold plated stuff than I have now.
 

I had a gold plated button that I should have left alone. Put it in a jewelry cleaning jar and forget about it for two weeks. Took it
out a few days ago and the gilding was gone, only a brass button now. I don't fool with mercury anymore either after finding out
how dangerous the fumes are.
 

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