Melting a Kilo of Placer gold, Fun Video I just did on melting/smelting

jewelerdave

jewelerdave

Hero Member
Aug 29, 2007
848
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Fort Collins, Colorado
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I just follow my nose!...where the silver and gold goes!
Minelab 5000, Goldmaster, and a few others
XRF spectrometer, Common sense.
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
So I have not been on Tnet in a while. Got Side tracked with Gold Rush show stuff and that made things kinda busy.

Anyway. people are always asking for tours and what we do etc. So I am going to start making some videos Gold melting, some exploration stuff. Some stuff I really wish I could post but discovery wont let me.

Anyway its not perfect. I am a better refiner than video maker but please enjoy!


 

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Love it! Even more information to further our gold hunting efforts! Gotta love this forum and all the helpful folks here.
 

Nice video. Thanks for sharing!
Just curious though, you told us us the raw weight, what was the finish weight of that as pure gold?
 

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Interesting to see, wonder what my wife would think of an induction furnace in my basement workshop or garage ;)

Question: would preheating the mold be another option? Does it matter what sort of oil you use on the mold?
 

Thats pretty neat!!!
 

It was some pretty junky gold with a lot of black sands. The results were a 29.3 oz bar of metal and the gold had a final assay of 79% So all totaled 23.14 oz of fine gold was recovered. As well as 5.1 oz of silver. Due to the need to remelt a few times we paid the client 98% on the gold at $1254 at the time, Netting that prospector a cool $28,437

Because that material was so junky we had to remelt if 3 times to get a clean bar. Then we just cut to a shot of the gold after refining so the final pour was the 23 oz of fine.

I will be doing some other videos start to finish that are more complete as it is interesting. But Also i am not going to give away all my secrets either. A lot of people do the try it at home thing. And have tremendous losses they dont even realize, make mistakes etc. Lost a good chuck of there gold. just like I love to pan the concentrates of any sluices or dredger exactly where i see them panning in the stream...cha-ching! simple mistakes can be costly for those who try to do it all them selves. My advice...specialize. get good at finding gold. guys like me do it right and it only costs your %1-%3 and you get the benefit of more than a decade of experience. Get good at finding the gold. Be the guy who gets the $28k pay out for a week of work and not the guy who has $300 in gold and loses $100 of it and never knows it when more could have been found in the field. Self melting only cuts your melt loss and only if you do it right, you can have absorption and evaporation spills and accidents and incomplete reactions, and this is a case of what you don't know is defiantly hurting you!!. Self refining only gives the guy you sell it too an advantage but they are going to reprocess it again anyway so they can sell it. Doing it right will take over $100k-600k in equipment tools. Losses from mistakes etc. Only makes sense if your doing it as a business and doing a lot of volume.
 

With a final assay of 79% it doesn't sound like you're really refining it. Do you actually refine it to get .999 which of course is the content of fine gold??
 

yes, we refine it to 999 and make it into coin and bar, check out my web site and you can see all the things we turn gold and silver into

Prospector's Gold & Gems
 

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I have a small furnace I bought from a guy on ebay. He pours into graphite molds which I have some.
Pre heating gets any moisture out so it does not explode. I have never used oil. I believe but I will have to check but about 1/4 to 1/3 borax to the amount of your material.
Not by weight, but by measurement. For instance. If I had 1 oz of gold, I would use about 1/4 cup of borax. Some one will come along and say Im wrong, so do some checking if you want.
My furnace is one of those propane torch set ups. This guy has a lot of videos on you tube.
He goes by canvasman, his name is a link to his videos.
He builds the furnaces which are extremely well built. I have no connection, or get anything from this post. Just that I bought his furnace, have his molds, ect.
If you use a furnace like mine, you put your crucible in the furnace to melt your material, and set the mold on top of the furnace just before you take your material out to pour.
'I also have a few molds with a melting pot on top.
So, you put the material in the top,then set it in the furnace, and as it melts, it flows through a hole into the mold. Then like in casting bullets, you cut off the sprue after the mold has cooled.
 

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jewelerdave said:
yes, we refine it to 999 and make it into coin and bar, check out my web site and you can see all the things we turn gold and silver into Prospector's Gold & Gems
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Jeweler Dave have you thought about coming to local prospecting club meetings to do presentations on your services? The Gold Prospectors of the Rockies meets in Lakewood monthly. We had over 100 people at the meeting last night and I bet they'd be interested in seeing a video and learning about what you do!
 

Yeah And I need to call back to set up a time. also some of the reason for the videos as so many clubs want me to come and do a talk. I will. all in time. :) Didnt Freddy do one a while back with you guys?

thanks
 

jewelerdave said:
Yeah And I need to call back to set up a time. also some of the reason for the videos as so many clubs want me to come and do a talk. I will. all in time. :) Didnt Freddy do one a while back with you guys? thanks
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glad to hear it, looking forward to meeting you :)

If Freddy Dodge came to a meeting, I must have missed that. I have had several opportunities to do events with him though, Great guy!
 

Enjoyed watching the process, but having a tall skinny video is a pain. Turning the camera would make it full screen. Thanks for taking the time to show us how the refining is done.
 

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