And out of the kiln came......

DanB · Jun 20, 2008

cupels with gold.......

db

rmptr · Jun 20, 2008

WoW Dan!

You're pretty busy!

Good for you!

rmptr

tymcmurray · Jun 20, 2008

How long does it take you to refine that much?

Green1 · Jun 20, 2008

not a clue wth your talking about........

DanB · Jun 20, 2008

I fill 3 shelves in the kiln like that in the photo, those three shelves represent a weeks worth of work. I put in about 12 hrs a day to get this many cupels done.This hobby is starting to feel like another full time job. In time I will lay out a full pictorial describing the process from start to finish. To some this might look like a lot, but that is a drop in the bucket compared to what it took to get here. 8 years ago i started buying the equipment for this project and slowly pieced everything together over time and it is finally coming full circle........I can safely say I am self taught, all the info on line is very veg and sparse, so I do have a lot of trial and error at my expense. I do have a great deal of time and money sunk into this project.........and finally there is a golden light at the end of this tunnel. It is still very far away, but I am a lot closer than I was 8 years ago.

db

SC_hunter · Jun 20, 2008

db...you have to explain to some of us how and what you are doing....I can see the gold but have no idea what a cupel is

? Looks like you did it right..I see the end results.

pookie-princess of rust · Jun 20, 2008

SC_hunter said:
db...you have to explain to some of us how and what you are doing....I can see the gold but have no idea what a cupel is? Looks like you did it right..I see the end results.

i have no idea either

nice gold though :wink:

DanB · Jun 20, 2008

Ok I hope this will help shed to light for those in the dark :icon_sunny:

The black glass was rock that was heated and cooked in a blast furnace. when poured white hot, and allowed to cool in a cooling tower. When I flip the tower over it is emptied out, I get this black pyramid, I then smash the pyramid with a hammer, Once the cooked glass has cooled you will have the metal on top and glass on the bottom, this metal object is called a prill. The prill consists of lead, silver gold and platinum metals. This prill is placed in a cupel as seen in the photo, then it is baked in the kiln for 2 1/2 hours.The cupel is made out of bone ash and magnesite, this material absorbs the lead, and only the precious metals are left behind.(hence the term if you can cupel it, you can sell it) when the cupel absorbs the lead and it turns from a white to a yellow/ brown color.They(cupels) can only be used once, then destroyed and discarded. Normally you have white gold bb's, these bb's are then remelted and poured into dore bars, then there are a few more steps in refining the gold to 24k.
I hope this helps. I will gladly answer any questions anybody has to the best of my ability...thanks for reading and HH.

db

SC_hunter · Jun 20, 2008

Geeezz..the more I see and read the more questions I have for you db. I take it you have a "blast furnace"....Seems like a hefty investment because the only picture I get is one of some hugeeeeeee machine with someone shoveling coal in it to feed the fire :icon_study:

..now, what kind of "rock" do you put in the blast furnace

? As you can tell, I don't think I would make a good geologist..lol

DanB · Jun 20, 2008

Little blast furnace melts 10 lbs,

Big blast furnace melts melts 300 lbs

jorge del norte · Jun 20, 2008

where are the supplies bought to do this?

DanB · Jun 20, 2008

I can get all the products on line and shipped to my door, or at a local mining supply store in AJ, and Prescott Az.

db

rmptr · Jun 20, 2008

What are you cooking, Dan?

Ore? Processed tailings? Slag from the wwII copper mines? Scrap?

And I wouldn't mind if you don't answer...

HH
rmptr

Michellets · Jun 21, 2008

Dan, Isn't it amazing what you can do with a little ingenuity, a kiln, other assorted equipment, and lots of persistence! That's really great, and obviously you've gone over and above what your average person would try. Some years ago I believe that there was a man in California that used his kiln to reproduce rubies, and other precious/semi precious minerals by breaking the minerals down to an empirical formula, then making a compound based on the empirical formula, and heating, cooling the mix under certain atmospheric/time/temp conditions...I'm sure he's a millionaire today, and that business started in his garage! :thumbsup:

DanB · Jun 21, 2008

The material that I cook down is gold ore. Each gold ore has a different characteristic when cooked so one recipe usually cannot be shared when cooking the rock down from other areas. I haven't had much luck with tailings. Good luck finding some tailings, all the good stuff has already been picked over or picked up.

regards db

rmptr · Jun 21, 2008

OK Dan, you have an ore source...
I was curious, and I know what it did to the cat!

Many moons ago, when I once ranged through the Mojave, I heard tell of WWII British copper mining leases on BLM land. They were very large production mines, with one, solitary intent. Produce copper.
One fellow I met had a dumptruck load of slag at his property and he easily gave us a couple 5gal buckets of it to work with. All samples clearly showed a metallic trace on the extremely hard slag leftover from their process.
He had it assayed, and it showed precisely what content was available.
Volume had to be reduced before it would be profitable to smelt for the secondary recovery of noble metals.
Problem was, it was so hard that it ate up jaw crushers and impact mills.

As you well know, there's quite a bit of difference in doing something as a hobby, and doing it on a scale that is profitable. LoL Ask Jerry Keene about HIS gold mine! What a great one he's built...
It was his father, Ernie, who was the one actually prospecting and mining.

You should take steps to consolidate your experience and publish a book.

I'll buy one!

Best,
rmptr