Can it be done?

[G1sammons]

S it possible to gold plate lead?
Just thought it might be a fun thing for those friends ya bring along who think there gona flip a rock over and pick up a huge nugget ...
I have the idea for a while just don't know if it can be done

 

[Underburden]

Gilding is a better method. Take your lead to a sign shop that does gold leaf work.
I've guilded a 5 ounce chunk of lead and when I slap it down on the bar, heads turn.

 

[G1sammons]

Gilding is a better method. Take your lead to a sign shop that does gold leaf work. I've guilded a 5 ounce chunk of lead and when I slap it down on the bar, heads turn.

hmm never herd of that but it would work if it's not too costly
Eltro plating is easy and cheap to do
Thanks I'll check it out .... Can't wait

 

[Fullpan]

For that matter, could you gold plate lead sinker weights ? economically or otherwise ?

 

[Aurabbit79er]

I don't know why, but this post reminded me about how the Chinese miners ( who were well known for their cooking as well as their mining ability) disguised their gold to smuggle it out of the country. The government made them sell their gold, it was illegal to export. So they cast their gold into cooking utensils like pots and pans and coated them with charcoal to look like cast iron.

 

[Oakview2]

Get yourself a can of Zynolyte Super Gold Epoxy spray paint, or Krylon for that matter. Cheap and for a practical joke can't be beat.

 

[goldenIrishman]

You can also get a small gilding kit at most of the better arts and crafts stores. Why pay someone to do something that you can do yourself for a lot less?

 

[Hoser John]

Piece a cake,clean with tsp,etch in a 50% sulfuric acid solution for 2 minutes at 5 volts,scrub with a wire brush,pickle in a 10% muriatic acid for 10 seconds and any good 24kt gold solution(acidic or cyanide based) will plate easily at 20@per square foot. Cyanide copperstrike with a nickle flash will make it nice and shiny if desired. Englehard has some of the best quality precious metal solutions on the market. Plate lead gobs to look like gold nuggets will get ya shot or ya just disapperar like Lanny D......POOF-hahaha-John

 

[russau]

years back i was out panning with 2 friends of mine and i brought some small aluminum "nuggets" that were spray painted gold. when my buddys werent looking, i flipped them into their holes they were digging and sat back to watch their expresions on their face when they pulled them out of their hole! after a few words we all laughed about it!but you couldnt put a price on their expresion on their faces when they saw whay they had pulled out!

 

[Underburden]

Here's my step-by-step.
Retrieve melted lead from the bon fire.
Scrub with soapy water and let dry.
Apply a thin coat of varnish to your lead.
After a few hours, test tack with the back of your knuckle...if it's slightly tacky but not sticky, it's ready for gold leaf.
With a dry paint brush, lay a layer of gold leaf on the lead and use the tip of the dry brush to force the leaf into the many voids and folds in the lead. Check for holidays and poke more leaf into them.
Let it sit for a while, then using the dry brush, wisk away the excess leaf. Rub with a cotton ball to polish.
Bingo. Guilded Lead (AuPb)
Bob

 

[G1sammons]

Thanks fellas you know I'm gona have fun with this one for sure!
Probably gona get whooped over it ... That's ok it will be worth it !

 

[Underburden]

I came || this close to getting my meal paid for with this piece. I walked up to the cashier, slapped it down on the counter and told her I wanted change in paper currency. She grabbed it and took it back to the pub's owner. Trouble is, the owner is also a hard rock miner so I eventually pulled my wallet out and paid in the conventional manner. He did like it though

Bob

 

[goldenIrishman]

LOl.... ya know.... this has got me thinking ( as some of you know that can be dangerous) That this could be a great joke to pull on Robi. Maybe be working the site, plant the "nugget" and have her take over for a bit while I take a breather. I might end up sleeping on the couch for a month, but if I can get it on video it will be worth it!

Ya'll are evil, sick and twisted! I LIKE that in my friends!

 

[AzViper]

LOl.... ya know.... this has got me thinking ( as some of you know that can be dangerous) That this could be a great joke to pull on Robi. Maybe be working the site, plant the "nugget" and have her take over for a bit while I take a breather. I might end up sleeping on the couch for a month, but if I can get it on video it will be worth it!

Ya'll are evil, sick and twisted! I LIKE that in my friends!

Try 6 months... It is funny to think about. My mining buddy would flip if I did this to him...

 

[mrlindeman]

Sometimes I buy big pickers and nuggets from a friend that owns a prospecting shop. I will take a bunch and salt a sample for my wife to pan at the river. Telling her its my break time. She goes nuts. Its great because she keeps what she finds and doesn't know that I salted her. Its my way of gift giving gold to my wife lol. I think she's on to me based on the fact the only time big gold is found is when I hand her a pan once and a while.

 

[hvacker]

I remembered this story from ancient Greece when a crown was made and some were wondering if it was gold or a fake.

Eureka (word) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The beginning of the specific gravity scale.

 

[russau]

Thanks fellas you know I'm gona have fun with this one for sure!
Probably gona get whooped over it ... That's ok it will be worth it !

Gary when this goes down make sure you get a video of it and post it here! dont forget to duck!

 

[G1sammons]

Gary when this goes down make sure you get a video of it and post it here! dont forget to duck!

Ohh I get folks all the time now . I hate cleaning up the cons and a friend of mine likes it so he usually does it back at camp on the evenings
Iv always used real stuff just to keep it fun but he's bought his own dredge so I'd like to get him at least one more and he's really itching run it
He bought a 4" keene used 2 times suites dive weights bucket clean out almost all new for 2600 also got some pans and clean up sluices
That's why I was telling that others fella to buy a used one it's a much better deal and there's lots of folks who buy them run them and realize the nuggets don't jump into the box on there own and give up quick ....

 

[TheNewCatfish]

Salting or Seeding (using fake nuggets to entice a mark), has been around as long as dinasaur bones. Your friends had better be as naive or stupid as Forest Gump or the trick won't work. I had a couple of small pickers dropped into a pan once by a fella who needed $600 dollars for a new water pump. Don't know if he ever found a sucker who was stupid enough to fall for that one, but i didn't. Also saw a fella who was flashin around nuggets tryin to get other prospectors to dig a creek down to bedrock for him.. Unfortunately he left his torch, crucible and rock hammer sitting outside the tent, so it was pretty obvious the nuggets were fakes. Later, he confided that was how the scam worked. But a seasoned prospector won't fall for these scams, not usually.

 

[G1sammons]

Salting or Seeding (using fake nuggets to entice a mark), has been around as long as dinasaur bones. Your friends had better be as naive or stupid as Forest Gump or the trick won't work. I had a couple of small pickers dropped into a pan once by a fella who needed $600 dollars for a new water pump. Don't know if he ever found a sucker who was stupid enough to fall for that one, but i didn't. Also saw a fella who was flashin around nuggets tryin to get other prospectors to dig a creek down to bedrock for him.. Unfortunately he left his torch, crucible and rock hammer sitting outside the tent, so it was pretty obvious the nuggets were fakes. Later, he confided that was how the scam worked. But a seasoned prospector won't fall for these scams, not usually.

Well I prefer not to call them stupid or naive will just say there dreamers ... I prefer not to think of people as being stupid .... Iv made it pretty far in life and learned early on catfish that the man who you think is the stupidest around ya can teach you more than you could ever imagine ... We all have our place and just because someone knows something that another does not brings no level of stupidity on either of them until one thinks he's better or smarter ... We all have the things we r good at and we all have the things we r not good at... Any how we r just a bunch of fellas playing none of us take it that serous but we all dream of catching that big fish!..and as long as your laying in wait its easy to get any of us !