Firing melt furnace this week - iron plus gold?

S

Scriven

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Mar 26, 2008
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I am going to fire my furnace a few times this week and have a couple questions for you guys.

Would there be any value to having a fraction to several percent gold and platinum alloyed with steel? Are there any visible signs of the impurity or structural advantages to such an alloy?

There is a bit of wire gold and fines of platinum and gold in this black sand that I recovered from the mountains while dredging a stream and was considering smelting it down into steel.

I was told that black sand can form around micron particles of noble metals and one fella said that he was able to recover 3 lbs of gold from 10 pounds of sand by smelting it.

I am positive that there will not be THAT much gold-platinum in my sand, but I may be able to recover a substantial amount from it so I want to make sure that this steel would be worth it. I may be trading a few ounces of gold for this steel.....




ALso



I have a bucket of assorted ball bearings and some powdered 1084 that I am considering firing together in a crucible.




Should this work without mixing flux in the charge, instead covering the top with flux or ground glass?
 
Are you in southern Oregon?
The rivers around here have black sand with gold and platinum. Just curious if I should start collecting some. Sure look forward to hearing how this works out.
 
Heh, i can assure you whoever told you they got 3lbs of gold from 10lbs of sand is stretching the truth if not outright lying. That's between 48 and 57 thousand dolars in gold... you cant tell me that that person wouldnt be investing in dumptrucks and digging up riverbeds and starting his own commercial mine at that ratio =P
 
There are 12 troy oz to a lb. At todays NY Market average, $1211/oz 3 lbs would be $43,596. If you don't see VG (visible gold) in that sand, you would be extremely lucky to get a half oz/Ton or 0.0002 oz gold. If the gold is not free milling, that is, bound up chemically with Sulfur or Tellurium-common alloying elements, it would have to be refined by either roasting or autoclaving and then almalgamated with mercury and extracted by leaching with Cyanide solution.

I am not sure about gold as an alloying element for steel. Not everything you can alloy with gives desirable results.
 
Only a knifemaker would want to get the gold out to make sure the steel is pure!
 
3lbs. of gold from 10 lbs. of sand? Where did you say you lived?:D
Mace
 
Burl Source said:
Are you in southern Oregon?
The rivers around here have black sand with gold and platinum. Just curious if I should start collecting some. Sure look forward to hearing how this works out.
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Central Oregon cascades near the Three Sisters.

Get a pan and start working a stream bed. Look for what looks like an old bend in the shifting beds and start removing rocks until you can get to the sand.

Pan the sand until you have the heavy material. If there is gold, you should see it.
 
Justin.Mercier said:
Heh, i can assure you whoever told you they got 3lbs of gold from 10lbs of sand is stretching the truth if not outright lying. That's between 48 and 57 thousand dolars in gold... you cant tell me that that person wouldnt be investing in dumptrucks and digging up riverbeds and starting his own commercial mine at that ratio =P
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Actually that person is working an pretty large claim in Okanogin where I would guess he has moved a few hundred tons of placer material.

The black sand is a tiny proportion of the material sluiced.

It usually takes a long time to get 10 pounds of black sand that way. The spot I am working is super rich in black sand, silver ore, gem gravel of several varieties and gold wire and dust with platinum fines. I produced an amazing amount of black sand for the amount of material that I have sluiced. It may be rich, it may be relatively pure magnetite.
 
Steve Hayden said:
There are 12 troy oz to a lb. At todays NY Market average, $1211/oz 3 lbs would be $43,596. If you don't see VG (visible gold) in that sand, you would be extremely lucky to get a half oz/Ton or 0.0002 oz gold. If the gold is not free milling, that is, bound up chemically with Sulfur or Tellurium-common alloying elements, it would have to be refined by either roasting or autoclaving and then almalgamated with mercury and extracted by leaching with Cyanide solution.

I am not sure about gold as an alloying element for steel. Not everything you can alloy with gives desirable results.
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There is a good bit of visible gold in wire and fines as well as directly attached to quartz habits.

It is a very unique area.

For every 1000 lbs or so material sluiced, I get about a pound of black sand.
 
sunshadow said:
gold ruins the properties of steel, as does silver, copper, tin.

-page
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That cinches it then. I will soak the magnetite black sand in HCl or FeCl and water to remove most of the iron and then fire the remainder.

Thanks for that. That is exactly what I wanted to know.




How about firing ball bearings and 1084 powder?
 
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