Gold Pile

[southfork]

My son had a good day at the mine this seam is loaded.

 

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[Tesorodeoro]

Just an update my son is still finding bits and pieces when he can get out. I have two threads on the same gold, but one is with me trying different methods to extract / recover values. Gold Ore thread not sure if it's going well, I'll keep trying for a while.

I’ll stop with the unrelated back and forth. End it with a joke for ya.

 

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[southfork]

One of my son's finds on mine waste pile 5.5grams. Photo on the left is after a week-long soak in Whink. Photo on the right same nugget after 1 hour in Clorox.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

One of my son's finds on mine waste pile 5.5grams. Photo on the left is after a week-long soak in Whink. Photo on the right same nugget after 1 hour in Clorox.

The Clorox soak was after soaking in whink? It appears to have darkened the host rock? What made you want to soak in bleach? I’ve not heard of doing this.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Be careful!
Chlorine (bleach) is a Halogen and will dissolve your gold.

Heavy Pans

 

[southfork]

The Clorox soak was after soaking in whink? It appears to have darkened the host rock? What made you want to soak in bleach? I’ve not heard of doing this.

First pic covered in white / Second pic most of the white chalky matrix gone. Just an experiment your results my vary I like the way it turned out.

 

[southfork]

Be careful!
Chlorine (bleach) is a Halogen and will dissolve your gold.

Heavy Pans

I t takes a long time to dissolve pure gold by itself One hour soak. No change in weight even if it precipitates and goes into liquid solution, I think I read where it can be chemically made to drop?

 

[arizau]

Just a thought....maybe use an ultrasonic cleaner. Might work to brighten gold after "whink" soak or maybe clean well enough to eliminate that step. For a test, a local jewelry store may do it for free.

Heavy pans.

 

[southfork]

Just a thought....maybe use an ultrasonic cleaner. Should work to brighten gold after "whink" soak or maybe clean well enough to eliminate that step. Local jewelry store may do it for free.

Heavy pans.

I was thinking about another wink soak to see if the white comes back. The Whink sure brightens the gold.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Just a thought....maybe use an ultrasonic cleaner. Might work to brighten gold after "whink" soak or maybe clean well enough to eliminate that step. For a test, a local jewelry store may do it for free.

Heavy pans.

The ultra sonic cleaner does wonders, especially to get the rust stains out of the cracks in the quartz. However, it has to be almost an industrial ultra sonic cleaner like a dentist office/medical field would use before you start to see dramatic results. I’m half tempted to buy the Hornady ultra sonic case cleaner just as a test to see if it will work on specimen gold..if not I’ve got a use for it..the el cheapo ones are a waste of $$

EDIT: I wouldn’t use Whink in an ultra sonic cleaner!

 

[Tesorodeoro]

SF, if you like how the Whink brightens the gold…you can get similar results with gold jewelry cleaner and it’s a heck of a lot safer. It will brighten the gold for awhile, then the impurities will tarnish eventually. I think you can put this stuff in an ultra sonic cleaner and get pretty decent results on a piece you are not trying to dissolve host rock from. Great for presentation…if you have a piece with nice quartz matrix and plenty of gold showing, the ultra sonic cleaner preserves the natural look of the quartz. Your host rock looks like calcium or limestone..I’m not sure.

 

[southfork]

I t takes a long time to dissolve pure gold by itself One hour soak. No change in weight even if it precipitates and goes into liquid solution, I think I read where it can be chemically made to drop?

While I'm still actively cleaning gold, I found this information on bleach. Gold is an almost non-reactive metal, but halogens — chlorine, bromine, fluorine and iodine — can dissolve it. Chlorine is the cheapest and lightest product that can achieve this. Bleach is the chemical compound sodium hypochlorite. When combined with hydrochloric acid, the mixture produces chlorine that dissolves gold from gold ore. This was the first commercial method used for gold extraction. When combined with hydrochloric acid I was only using bleach by itself.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Um... sodium hypochlorite is chlorine. You don't need hydrochloric acid to create chlorine from sodium hypochlorite.

All the halogens will dissolve gold all on their own. Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine and Iodine all dissolve gold and they have all been used at different times to extract gold from ore. These days cyanide is preferred in most situations because it's cheaper, less toxic and easier to recover.

I seriously doubt that a few hours in household chlorine bleach (about 6% chlorine) is going to do any serious damage to your nugget. Leave it in there for a few weeks and you will have a portion of your gold in solution as gold chloride.

Heavy Pans

 

[southfork]

Another piece of mine waste with the Minelab 2300 all this and my son went to Nevada detecting. 5.5 grams

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Another piece of mine waste with the Minelab 2300 all this and my son went to Nevada detecting. 5.5 grams

That’s a nice one. Hopefully you can keep it in one piece.

 

[Goldwasher]

I got invited on that trip but, I homeschool my girls and couldn't go. Schools not out until the 25th. I showed Ole how to use Muriatic and whink. your doing just fine. The gold in our area sheds because there can be quite a bit in the host rock contact. I use denal picks and a large drywall screw to help pick the quartz out of the gold crystal structure. not sure if you are but, use a multimeter and you can check for continuity on pieces to see what is cnnected and what isn't within the pieces. if it is mainly gold and your cleaning matrix off long soaks in muriatic seem to work best. I also have a battery powered water pick for teeth it has a little resevoir works pretty good blasting stuuf off of and out of the little nooks and crannies. Not too powerful. as you've probably learned do everything over a tub.

I have a few threads here showing specimins I cleaned up for selling.

 

[southfork]

I got invited on that trip but, I homeschool my girls and couldn't go. Schools not out until the 25th. I showed Ole how to use Muriatic and whink. your doing just fine. The gold in our area sheds because there can be quite a bit in the host rock contact. I use denal picks and a large drywall screw to help pick the quartz out of the gold crystal structure. not sure if you are but, use a multimeter and you can check for continuity on pieces to see what is cnnected and what isn't within the pieces. if it is mainly gold and your cleaning matrix off long soaks in muriatic seem to work best. I also have a battery powered water pick for teeth it has a little resevoir works pretty good blasting stuuf off of and out of the little nooks and crannies. Not too powerful. as you've probably learned do everything over a tub.

I have a few threads here showing specimins I cleaned up for selling.

Ole is a gold magnet my son Ole and Tom hunt out here often

 

[Goldwasher]

Ole is a gold magnet my son Ole and Tom hunt out here often

He sure is. Tom is a good guy. I've heard good things about your son.

 

[southfork]

He sure is. Tom is a good guy. I've heard good things about your son.

There still out in this crazy weather heading towards Rye Patch.

 

[southfork]

A couple more pieces for the clean pile 9 grams

 

[Lanny in AB]

Nicely done!

Congratulations, and all the best,

Lanny