Home refining...what happened?

[nvradar]

So I was melting a few bars,things were going fine. You can see most are nice yellow gold. The sand/gold in the pan is a different batch I was melting.I had a small gold chain that was about an inch long I dropped in the crucible and the bars for two pours came out silvery like you see. What happened? I use Chapman flux and some borax.

I have since discovered my problem and will soon fix it. Thanks anyway all.

 

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[greaser]

so what was the the problem?

 

[nvradar]

My gold turned silver. Now I have to get it out of my gold! DANG! I hope I can find a how to on here.

 

[Goose-0]

It appears that your small gold chain was 'vermeil'......gold plated sterling.

 

[nvradar]

Yes I do believe thats the culprit. So I have a question about the nitric acid. The process says to start with a 50/50 mix of nitric acid and water and this first step will clean the gold of most other metals. So if you don't want to refine to 24k you can stop at this point correct?