Home smelter?

O

Okiedigger

Greenie
Dec 6, 2007
18
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I've been reading up on smelting and would like to give it a go, but I'm not sure where to start. I'd like to build a smelter, but was wondering if anyone here had experience with it or where I could buy the pieces I need online somewhere. I'm not looking to go big, but something I can do on the back porch or in my work shop and be fairly portable. Any ideas? Hints? Sorry if this has been posted somewhere else, but I wasn't finding it.
 

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couldn't you find a used kiln off craigslist ? could set the temp. put on a timer.regulate the heat perfectly.
 

Thanks for the replies. I was searching using the wrong words. I should have been looking for a kiln or furnace, not "smelter" which didn't return the results I was looking for. I have a few different things I'd like to use it for. Mainly I'll be doing more melting than smelting. I do a lot of metal detecting so I find a lot of silver rings and bracelets and what not. I'd like to melt those into 5 ounce ingots since they're just scrap anyway. I also find gold rings, but doubt I'll melt those unless they're just 10k junk. I'd like to play with the cheap gold and experiment some. I find tons of lead so I'd like to melt that into ingots as well. As far as the smelting goes...I have found an area that has a lot of flour gold. Basically 100 mesh or finer. There's also A LOT of blacksand. I'm in the process of building a sluice designed specifically to process this flour gold and try to separate it as much as possible from the blacksand. I was thinking that I could then smelt that all together and trap the blacksand in glass since it has a much higher melting point and lower density and leave the gold and other metals in a plug to be assayed later. If I'm way off base here, please let me know as this is all new to me.

Some might wonder why I wouldn't use mercury. I'm just not comfortable with the idea of using mercury and I have children so I don't want to take any chances.
 

Take care when melting down things like lead, 1 whiff of the vapors and you could be pushing up daisies. Make sure you and anyone else is upwind of any lead melting, might not be a good thing in a residential area. Not sure on silver or gold, but lead can be a nasty one.
 

Zior said:
Take care when melting down things like lead, 1 whiff of the vapors and you could be pushing up daisies. Make sure you and anyone else is upwind of any lead melting, might not be a good thing in a residential area. Not sure on silver or gold, but lead can be a nasty one.
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Zior, the same could be said of mercury vapours, of course. However, when smelting ANYTHING, proper ventilation setup is foremost in the planning stages, with the same for the proper heat application.

As far as a furnace goes, I've heard of somewhat cheap cyclone propane furnace which uses a certain size crucible to melt or smelt whatever object with whatever flux. I've heard the black glass from black sands is neat... especially since the gold floats to the top >) there's all sorts of chemical fluxes to make stuff more pourable, and more chemically separated... Good luck
 

hookshot said:
Gold floats? Gotta see this. :o
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Once you have been panning for a bit you will see it. All you have to do is have some fine gold in the pan and you can watch the surface tension of the water's edge lift the gold and float it off. You can also google gold flotation recovery and read about that method for recovering gold as well.
 

I have been panning for more than a bit. This is not the same thing. If you melt black sand and there is gold, it will make a buton at the bottom. If you are talking about about a couple little flakes and you melt the black sand but not hot enough to melt the gold, well, that might happen, float the gold.
 

Oh I apologize, I see what you are saying now. I thought this was just another post from a new panner who didn't realize gold could float. I have no experience with smelting so I cant comment on gold floating to the top during that process. Sorry for the confusion, I should have read the topic better. Hopefully the guy who posted will comment and explain what he was talking about.
 

Astrobouncer said:
Hopefully the guy who posted will comment and explain what he was talking about.
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Yes, I was actually mentioning a detailed report of a melting of black sands with a spcific 3 chemical flux including borax that was used to pour black glass where the gold floated to the very top, and could easily be broken off from the glass. Heck if I can find the link now, it was deep one night in my smelting researches, and I've stumbled upon it several times after.

Also, I've yet to try this method, and since no pictures were seen, I can't actually say the method works.. but the information seemed very reliable, considerign the source.

Anyways, I work with people that build melting and smelting founderies on a commercial scale, and have made associates with a member of the blacksmithers circle of the state, and also now have acess to a furnace and people who will help me build my own version!
So, when I get the money up( around $250 USD) I can have my own protable awesome furnace with nessesary parts to make my melts/smelts... I'd like to do some glass work with this crystalinne black sand, for sure. Good luck.
:icon_sunny:
 

Several years ago I came across the plans for a small smelting furnace one could build for their backyard use. It used natural gas and a small blower to melt small amounts of iron and steel. It was constructed mostly of fire bricks.
Google "homemade melting furnace" and you'll find sources for the plans. There are sellers on eBay that sell printed info from old magazines. I've bought several, including the melting furnace. It's design is simple, but the temperatures involved are not to play around with.
When smelting gold and silver, borax powder is used to cover the material in the crucible to prevent gold or silver from vaporizing. The borax does not melt and blocks vaporize gold from escaping.
I would advise you not to melt lead and play with mercury. They will kill you or someone else if you breath the fumes.
 

Just get a MILLER TABLE and learn it and you will be able to extract the fine gold from the black sand.
 

nvradar said:
Just get a MILLER TABLE and learn it and you will be able to extract the fine gold from the black sand.
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Yeah but one just doesn't up and "get" a Miller Table.
It has to be build, tried, and tested... And then refined.
And even then, you're missing some of the gold...

So, my advice before milling is to wash out all the clay so that the recycling water stays clean, and then, to add a wave breaker so all the floating gold is forced below the surface.

And then the next step, is to get a portable smelting setup so you can go on a camping adventure with several buddies and melt some of the concentrates on a windy day in the wide open woods.

And, even then, don't expect to make more than $5 in gold, which will barely pay for 1/10 of the gas, not to mentiont he time involved.
BUT, if that little BB of gold at the top of the flipped and cooled crucible is worth it, to you, than by all means, shine on.

Practice safety first.
 

BBs?? OH no sir we don't mess with BBs ::) ;D
 

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Good luck getting a air permit :icon_scratch:
 

Just to put in my two cents, borax does indeed melt - put in the crucible with the gold it melts and sucks up most of the impurities, any remaining mercury is driven off and bits of black sand etc go into the borax.
Then pour gold into your (very hot) preheated mold, do this gently to leave some of the molten borax behind in the crucible. The borax bubbles and boils all around the gold which mostly stays on the bottom, not floating.
The borax that goes into the ingot mold turns into a hard brittle glass, that sits on top of the gold which takes quite a long time to cool. I just shattered this glass to release it from the gold as it wouldn't otherwise release. It also sticks in the crucible too.
After ten or so melts I would remelt all this borax and get a little more gold from it.
I used to do this once a week, to make a ingot from six to twenty odd ounces, wish I still had a couple of them lying around........

Nuggy
 

nuggy said:
Just to put in my two cents, borax does indeed melt - put in the crucible with the gold it melts and sucks up most of the impurities, any remaining mercury is driven off and bits of black sand etc go into the borax.
Then pour gold into your (very hot) preheated mold, do this gently to leave some of the molten borax behind in the crucible. The borax bubbles and boils all around the gold which mostly stays on the bottom, not floating.
The borax that goes into the ingot mold turns into a hard brittle glass, that sits on top of the gold which takes quite a long time to cool. I just shattered this glass to release it from the gold as it wouldn't otherwise release. It also sticks in the crucible too.
After ten or so melts I would remelt all this borax and get a little more gold from it.
I used to do this once a week, to make a ingot from six to twenty odd ounces, wish I still had a couple of them lying around........

Nuggy
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Yeah it takes a bit of effort. And all is well that ends well.
Thanks for the advice on the subject.
 

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