mete and IG - you'll love this!

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I am sort of the answer guy in our area when it comes to jewelery repairs and gemology questions.Most questions start with "How do you...,What happens if...,How do I fix...,and What do I do now?"Yesterday I got a call from a jeweler who had been working around the clock for days.He was adding some rhodium solution to his plating beaker(to top it off) and it turned milk white on him.The solution is sort of golden brown and clear - like ginger ale.Rhodium is super expensive,a bottle of solution containing 1 gram of rhodium costs well over $100.00.I asked him if anyone else was there,and he said no.I said,"Good,go out the door,leave the exhaust fan on,and don't go back in for four or five hours." What he had done was pour some of the gold plating solution into the rhodium solution.The gold is cyanide based,the rhodium is sulphuric acid based.Mete and IG are rolling on the floor right now - for the rest of you guys -the reaction precipitated the rhodium out of the solution,sad,but worse it created HCN -hydrogen cyanide gas.I told him to dilute the solution and dispose of it.and to get some sleep before he mixes chemicals again.
Merry christmas to everyone-stay safe- Stacy Apelt

 

[Dan Gray]

Good thing to remember
though I'm not sure why IG and Mete should be rolling around on the floor.


cyanide is nothing to be dealing or playing with if we don't know what we are doing with it for sure...

 

[mete]

Dan, at your age [happy birthday] you shouldn't be so serious, lighten up. At one company I hired on as the lab supervisor .I was going through cabinets to see what was there to find usable or disgard chemicals .I found a container of cyanide salts [used for case hardening] and right next to that a container of acid.NEVER mix the two together! The technicians were talked to. At another company dealing with military hardware the chemists made quality checks on gold plated contacts using cyanide to disolve the gold.The one chemist was a bit paranoid, he had at his desk a kit that contained inhalent and syringe that would save your butt if exposed.But he was the only one who knew how to use the kit !

 

[Dan Gray]

Dan, at your age [happy birthday] you shouldn't be so serious, lighten up. At one company I hired on as the lab supervisor .I was going through cabinets to see what was there to find usable or disgard chemicals .I found a container of cyanide salts [used for case hardening] and right next to that a container of acid.NEVER mix the two together! The technicians were talked to. At another company dealing with military hardware the chemists made quality checks on gold plated contacts using cyanide to disolve the gold.The one chemist was a bit paranoid, he had at his desk a kit that contained inhalent and syringe that would save your butt if exposed.But he was the only one who knew how to use the kit !

OK Robert
I'm happy,, but I don't have to be happy about it

 

[Steve Hayden]

As an ex-Nevada Gold miner, I have to say "I love the smell of cyanide in the morning."

You can always smell the bitter almond odor when you drive by the heap leach piles.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Dan, mete and IG are both old chem techs.They would see the danger and stupidity of this situation at a glance.
I keep several pounds of potassium cyanide and several gallons of acids (hydrochloric,nitric,sulfuric) at work.You should see the faces on the new firemen when they come in for the annual inspections.The old timers know about it,but cyanide scares the HE!! out of most people.And rightly so.Acid is stored in one side of the room,cyanide on the other.
In the jewelery industry we do bombing,a cleaning technique that uses hot cyanide solution and peroxide.It is a scary process which resembles the old soda and acid chem lab experiments.
SA