Any suggestions for car body gold?

Strebs · May 23, 2014

Hello, went up into Colorado to do alittle sluicing. I noticed as I was digging my hole I was pulling out these bigger peaces of rusty gravel, cables, and nails. I broke apart what I could but was wondering if any of you tnet members ran into this before? Personally I was thinking CLR to try and dissolve the rust...

Goldwasher · May 23, 2014

Always a good thing when your digging and find a concentration of heavy objects. They are grouped together for a reason. I would just use vinegar. Look on the relic hunting forum there are threads about cleaning and preserving artifacts.

Goldwasher · May 23, 2014

What do you mean by "car body gold" ?

3xflyfisher · May 23, 2014

I always find miscellaneous rusty iron and steel. Car parts, cans and almost anything you can imagine. I set it aside to take home to throw away. Leave your location in better condition than you found it!
That's very fine gold - good recovery. Where abouts were you sluicing?

KevinInColorado · May 23, 2014

I soaked a bunch of really rusty bits in sulphuric acid (I just used hot tub filter cleaner). After a week of soaking the rust had totally broken up, the steel was basically clean and ready for the recycle bin. The bottom of the bucket was full of sediment, little pebbles that had been bound up in the rust, etc. I panned it out and did find a few small flakes!

This confirmed the old miners' tales about gold being bound up in the rust due to both the iron items and gold landing in the same spots in the creek and then sitting there for decades as the rust forms around all of it.

I should add that I already owned the filter cleaner so there was basically no cost for me but I'm sure the gold was worth a lot less than the cost of have chemicals used...a fun, educational experiment but not worth the cost and effort. You'd be better off spending your time digging more paydirt and just tossing the rusty stuff straight in the recycle bin!

Strebs · May 26, 2014

Hey guys and gals... Thanks for the responses... I did use the vinegar and broke apart 95% of the rust didn't find much more than the previous picture but like Kevin said was a great learning experience (been gold prospecting for about 2 months now).... I was sluicing north of silverton CO, my first day out I met this older man walking his 5 dogs and stopped and talked with me daily telling me about his days as a young man sluicing in the area. He was the one who pointed out the rusty stuff and called it the "car body". Hope that helps!