The pooch who finally caught the car 😀

[Boarteats]

I finally caught that car! Now what do I do with it? lol

Still need to tweak my Chapman flux recipe. Too viscous. The results are suboptimal, so I’m crushing the slag, panning, and will try again. However, I’m happy to say that I’m finding little BBs of silver colored, malleable metal in the pan. I’ve read that Chapman flux should eliminate trace amount of base metals and their oxides. If so, then seems probable that the metal that I’m finding is an alloy of some combination of gold, silver, etc. Reasonable?

I’m planning to toss all the interesting bits of metal into a mason jar until I have at least a coin’s worth of material (by volume). At some point, I’d like to better understand what I’m actually collecting. I’d appreciate suggestions from the forum pros. Is it time to find a reputable assayer or should I give it a go on my own. ...keeping in mind that messing about with caustic acids and other such chemicals would not pass the spouse test.

Thanks in advance!

 

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[winners58]

are you using cone shaped crucibles? I'd say keep at it, doing is how we learn...
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don't know if you've seen this video on Chapman flux & black sands;
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e_AjDqp9-hA

 

[Boarteats]

are you using cone shaped crucibles? I'd say keep at it, doing is how we learn...
.
don't know if you've seen this video on Chapman flux & black sands;
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e_AjDqp9-hA

I haven’t tried a cone shaped crucible, I’ll take a look online for one. I’ve seen the video but watching again helped. I didn’t recall comments about adding extra borax if slag is too viscous. Would be great if I could let melt cool in crucible and remove glass after it’s cooled.

Funny thing. I’m starting to believe that I made my crucible furnace too large. Was built for a #3 clay-graphite crucible. Takes a lot of propane to get to right temps. Takes about 10 mins to reach melting temps. Of course, I originally built for iron smelting. Stumbled across the gold by accident.