I would like to learn the art of conducting an Assay. I know there are two kinds Fire and acid. Any Help will be greatly Appreciated.
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I would like to learn the art of conducting an Assay. I know there are two kinds Fire and acid. Any Help will be greatly Appreciated.
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Yeah, with real charcoal (not the brickettes) and a hair dryer, I was able to smelt some gold in a homemade foundary. The hard part was keeping charcoal in the fire, as with the blower it burned fast. I'm now building a bigger foundary that will be propane fired. If I ever get it completed, I'll post some photos.
Here's an idea, Dennis: Try using charcoal brickets, and hook up a small fan to force air into them. Basically what you're building is a small forge. put your crucible in the brickets. A forge will generate enough heat to melt steel, so melting gold should be a piece of cake. Let me know how it works. Ted
No I have not been able to get a fire hot enuff, and do not have torches yet. I have been desolving Au from Clay and letting gravity filter it for me then I'll pore off my clean solution and Kill the acid with sodium Bicarbonate and pore off the water and dry my slurry. I am in need of a smelter. We have more than gold here. there is Platinum, and Rhodium, and Uranium
Spur
Have you had any progress with learning how to assay?
btw, Zinc Oxide is not the same as zinc dust. In the first, the zinc is in compound with Oxigen, in the second it is in its elemental form (but grinded to dust).
The two main differences between AC to Characoal are: Purity and surface area.
AC is usually pure carbon, particle size ranges in the nano scale, ergo, giving it a huse surface area to mass ratio
is Zinc Oxide the same as Zinc Dust ? what is the differance between Activated Carbon and Charcoal ?
Thank You Ted. I should be able to handel this.
There is also AA (atomic absortion), but that's way to complicated and expensive for us. Your best bet is to concentrate on fire assey. You'll need a very sensitive scale, because you'll be converting one oz of material to a ton. Crush your sample to powder, split the sample down until you have one oz. Flux and melt, recover the "button" of gold,silver,copper, and lead. Weigh the button, then put it into nitric acid to dissolve everything but the gold, weigh the gold, and multiply that by 24000. That will give you oz per ton. This is a simplified method, but it'll get you started. Ted