Smelting Jeff William's Secret Gold

[@Askjeffwilliams]

that was some great info Jason ...... will have to use the Sulfuric acid for specimen clean up next time we get more Gold from our mine....... you are right ....every ore is different and not one way will work for them all.....would love to see a video of you parting the silver out of the buttons. Thanks for coming out to our mine and making it one for the books,. See ya soon and take care.

[@chaz2785]

Check out SREETIPS on KZbin for info on chemical gold refining. Very useful information 👌

[@signsofthetimes2971]

​@@chaz2785 it would be very cool to see sreetips finish those buttons off.

[@chaz2785]

@@signsofthetimes2971 yup sure would!

[@Arachnos27]

@@chaz2785 love sreetips

[@coreymerrill3257]

I know of one dude who uses a continuity detector to see if the gold veins are connected to each other in the rock . If they are, he sandblasts and acid treats to get the specimen on matrix.

[@g-dcomplex1609]

jason, you absolutely right about trial and error in regards to learning the craft, and teaching the craft as well, even though i have 13 years experience under my belt, i'm still learning and watch your videos to learn even more, your work is appreciated, regards

[@aaronstewart3570]

When he's not repeating the Slave Book rubbish and observes things... Then records what he finds. He mainly just repeats the crap he learned. Nothing more. Copy and repeating aren't improving anything. Just making you all blind and stupid to stuff you ignore.

[@TheMilwaukieDan]

This is exactly what I appreciate your work Jason…. It’s real learning and evaluation in process. Thank you for the honesty of the learning process.

[@mrgreenswelding2853]

It's good to see you do all these experiments, as lots of people don't have the money or resources to get everything to do them. Thanks to you and all involved!

[@patbrown5168]

It has been great to follow your work with Jeff's Ore. As an old retired engineer, it never gets old to see what the slag will look like on the different ores and different flux recipes.

[@ericclayton6287]

If you’re dealing with quartz matrix you’ll have to use hydroflouric acid. It dissolves quartz but is nasty and dangerous to work with. It also dissolves glass.

[@lotharschiese8559]

Don't play with hydrofluoric acid, commonly used in pharmaceutical antidepressant medication fluoxetine (Prozac) and the material PTFE (Teflon).

[@ericclayton6287]

I agree with Lothar but it is commonly used in mineralogical specimen preparation to dissolve guartz matrix around specimen gold and the rare showing of Pt. Pt almost never occurs in non ultramafic rock hence rarely associated with quartz.

[@fredfarquar8301]

I once had a quartz-and-gold nugget just under 1/4 oz; I placed it into a bottle of HF (Hydrofluoric acid) for several weeks. All the quartz was eaten up and left a beautiful gleaming gold nugget with tiny spires where it had penetrated the quartz. Even though the final weight of the gold was just a little less than 1/8 oz, I sold it for the price of 1/4 oz because it looked so nice. But yes, HF is nothing to fool with. Get it on your skin, and not only will you NOT feel any pain, it will continue to react with fat, muscle, and bone. People who have spilled it on themselves have had to had limbs amputated because the flesh and bone is dead and gangrene sets in. Unlike other acids or strong bases, it never lets you know when or what it is destroying until it’s too late.

[@danvigue2238]

sounds like this method should only be used in lab setting.....

[@ericclayton6287]

Knowledge or research and due caution and lab skills are much more important than setting. In other words don’t be stupid. No hold my beer and watch this. There are numerous chemicals that for safeties sake need to be used in a fume hood for instance.

[@stevezozuk9622]

What a great opportunity that was for both of you . Thank you for taking us along on the original journey , that brought you to this end result , I love watching you do your thing . Especially for the convection cells that always trap my eyes into watching the formations . Great job Jason , see you soon . Cheers

[@keithwood6459]

To keep it from turning green you need to neutralize the muriatic acid in the specimen by rinsing and putting in a solution with baking soda. Should neutralize all of them with appropriate agents.

[@OpalholicsAnonymous]

His poor fingers

[@haphazard1342]

He probably just rinsed with water, which would be enough to protect from burns but isn't enough to fully neutralize the acid in the rough rock surface.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks for sharing your experiments Jason! I'm really enjoying learning about smelting and hard rock mining, both things I've never done! Keep up the good work!

[@lerkzor]

It seems to me that a good method would be to combine mechanical methods (grinding / smelting) with chemical methods. Once you smelt and get all the metals into a cone, you could use pure chemistry. Nitric acid will dissolve all the copper, lead, silver, and perhaps other metals leaving the gold (and perhaps platinum group metals) behind as solids. Then using aqua regia (hydrochloric plus nitric) you can put the gold and PGMs in suspension. Adding a few drops of sulfuric acid will precipitate the lead, and after filtering you can use sodium metabisulfate (SMB) to precipitate the pure gold. If you are interested in getting into the chemistry side of things, pretty much the entirety of my armchair-expert knowledge comes from sreetips channel here on youtube. I enjoyed watching your video, what are you planning for next time?

[@markpashia7067]

I was also going to suggest sreetips possibly as another joint venture with these guys. Jeff dig it, Jason smelt it to a cone, and sreetips to chemically sort the metals out. Would be fun video series for all.

[@lordeverybody872]

@sreetips is imho the best at separating precious metals. At least on yt

[@Xero1of1]

1:57 My guess is whichever one has the strongest acid.

[@EeekItsSnek]

I still can't get over how good of a sample those are. Huge specimens! Even for a hard rock mine, for today's day those are some beautiful specimens. Great stuff!

[@markg454]

Your experiments are worthy of the effort. I learn so much from your trials and errors. Keep them coming. We really get excited when we receive a notification of a new video.

[@StephenBecker]

Give oxalic acid a try! I've used it to clean iron oxides off of quartz points before, worked great....everything was completely white/clear when it came out after an extended soak.

[@walterszarek2748]

isnt that sold as wood bleach?

[@danwells3401]

Hi Jason, Great video thanks! I've cleaned up a few specimens with acid and you really have to scrub them with warm water to get any acid residue off, to prevent yellow discolouration, soaking in a cup of water for 24 hours afterwards also helps!

[@jbowerman50]

Always interesting, wish I knew more about the chemistry end of what you do. I'm constantly researching something and just dont have enough megabytes left to fit much more in my cranium right now. But I'll get there, before I need to do my own smelting. Thanks Jason

[@akakscase]

A trick that I found works well for stopping crucibles from sticking is putting a piece of cardboard or poster board under the crucible when firing it. The resulting ash creates a non-stick layer under the crucible.

[@TechGorilla1987]

I remember that Applied Science used something similar when he made glass in his tabletop furnace.

[@EvilKFC]

The type of cleaner you use depends on your ore type. Sulfuric acid is a strong oxidizing acid while muriatic/hydrochloric is just a strong acid and vinegar is just a dilute acetic acid. Your standard bleach is a weaker base than sodium hydroxide. Some metals will complex with hydroxides and redissolve or the hydroxide interrupts the passivation layer so that the sub-material can be oxidized. Sodium hydroxide is also one of the few things that can dissolve glass and by extension quartz. Side note, a lot of chloride compounds end up being a yellowish to green. My guess is when you exposed the sample from the muriatic to air, you were getting some additional oxidizing of the surface that had become passivated creating a mineral that was green. Hydrogen peroxide is also a strong oxidizer but it’s also unstable. So if there was a mineral in the ore that worked like a catalyst, you’ll get a lot of oxygen formation as the peroxide breaks down, but no real progress is made. Long story short, based on the results you have, my guess is that the ore needs additional oxidizing. First try swapping your sulfuric and Drano samples a couple of times to see if they work together to take away the unwanted material. If that doesn’t make much difference, I would try a stronger oxidizing acid like nitric. Even though you have the materials, I would advise against Caro’s acid, there’s a reason why they call it piranha solution in the lab environment.

[@tzimmermann]

If I'm not mistaken, sufluric acid is a strong oxidizer only in concentrated form. In dilute aqueous solutions it dissociates, and can't form sulfurous acid and nascent oxygen (which is the actual oxidizer). It looks like he's using a concentrated solution as it comes from drain cleaner though, so I guess you're right.

[@jakuborvos1575]

HCL alone cannot dissolve gold, but if you have some oxidized manganese oxides in the ore, you can make chlorine in the juice and actually dissolve gold.

[@EvilKFC]

@Terrence You are correct that sulfuric is a strong oxidizing acid. I think there’s some additional uses in this case (like the swapping between acid and base). A couple things to note when working with sulfuric acid: There are inhibitors in drain cleaning sulfuric acids so that it doesn’t dissolve your pipes, that has me wondering if they’re at work here. You do need some water to dissolve any salts that form, which is why you typically don’t see fuming acids used very often (besides their other dangerous side effects). Lastly, most sulfate salts aren’t very soluble and sulfuric acid is used in high purity gold refining to drop out heavy metals, which might be decreasing its effectiveness here. I’m curious about nitric acid as all nitrate salts are soluble. One thing I left out in my original comment is that you should start with dilute solutions of nitric acid as I believe it can dissolve or create a fine dispersion of your gold if the karat is low.

[@aaronstewart3570]

Take your time. It's not at all Rare for a professional REE fossicker Like myself to sit a bucket in multiple Natural chemicals for months. These morons are in a hurry to lose heaps so they rush like fools would. Hence the so small amounts they get. Facts. But the re-tards called me crazy...??? lmao, Autistic isn't crazy. It makes me a genius in my specialized field. Earth.

[@aaronstewart3570]

@@jakuborvos1575 I use that, the gold runs out with the water. There is a mix of 3 natural chemicals that do the same but takes longer. I discovered it. Less toxic.

[@hot_coldman]

Always fascinating to watch. We're so used to seeing the final product when it comes to gold. I would best most people think gold just pops out of the ground 100% pure and smelted.

[@christopherfritz.bigsaving]

Ain't that the truth. I couldn't tell you how long I was even begining to think I was crazy. Or my eyes /ears /hands/nose/ and tongue/ were just plain off or different than every ones. Cause I'd see it in the rocks and feel it. Sense it with all of the senses and people I'd show wouldn't do anything but glance and say. You got gold fever. There ain't no gold in there. And at first I'd argue and most of them really didn't believe there was any gold in the rocks. But then one day it clicked. There ain't no gold in any rock. There ain't no gold in trees. There ain't no gold in water and there definitely ain't no gold your shit there ain't no gold in anything. So I should have just gave up looking I suppose. Lol. Report via comment next week with some that has gold in it though 🤪

[@markusmaximus629]

If you clean with both, a base and an acid, one, then rinse, then the other, you will react with every thing that wants to react.

[@ProspectorTripp]

Nice work Jason. I’m getting ready for some testing using pay dirt (high grade sample) I want to do exactly what you did to see if I recover additional gold by smelting the entire sample vs sluice running and panning. Thanks much sir! ✌️PT

[@jackmclane1826]

You can put in old cupels with some charcoal to new smelts whenever you would add lead as collector metal. A great inline recycling method beneficial on many points. No waste to take care of, no additional lead needed, saves money, time, labor... awesome!

[@talldave1000]

Jason. not many people would show a failed experiment so i commend your honesty and integrity. Everybody makes mistakes. Anyway, you fixed them and pressed on. Great job and great video

[@Boosted98gsx]

You really should spray some rigidizer on that exposed Kaowool. Those fibers get torn and blown around your shop when you fire your crucible, and can do some severe damage to your lungs.

[@matthewsaleman58]

I use aluminium brightener to clean my gold. Alubrite. It is a mixture of various acids including 1% HF. It cleans the gold up perfectly and the gold retains its shine as well. I find that HCL takes away the golds shine so I prefer not to use it. Good video Cheers.

[@markusmaximus629]

You're a smart guy, knowledge in different areas and bringing it together. Its why I watch. Great stuff.

[@ziegemitfahrer5277]

Definitely sodium hydroxide/caustic soda/lye (all the same thing) works, but you need to BOIL it. If you get a speci with multiple shows of gold, test it with a multimeter to see if one show connects to another show. This give you an idea if it's something nice worth dissolving or it gets chucked in the crush bucket. Stick your speci in a zinc pot and bury it in lye. Slightly dampen the lye with water to make it boil easier. Boil it for an hour(ish) and the quartz will be gone. If you're lucky, you'll get a pristine nuggy or at least a much more attractive speci.

[@grammadonutsquashdog431]

How do you get the silver and gold to separate?

[@nsa_surveillance_orb-42b]

I love your investigatory methods, and lessons learned, very insightful. See, that right there is an issue I now know how to resolve, or begin to resolve. Loved the specimen cleanup with all the chemical varieties, learned all kinds of stuff. Keep up the good work, loved the cooperative work with Jeff and all, but love your channel all on its own as well. Keep it up!

[@jeremywalker210]

I love the experimenting and problem solving. And the explanation for each process. I understand the learning and your always open to suggestions. Love watching especially after a long day at work.

[@سیدجلیلمیرکاظمنژادفروهی]

سلام‌ استاد استاد فلزات یا موادی مثله بوراکس مکمل تجمیع طلا جهت رسوب در ته قیف اصطلاحا دگمه طلایی را راهنمایی میفرمائید متشکرم

[@busbey61]

Jason, you and Sreetips are very informative! I think a collab series with you and him using both of your methods would be beneficial for sure!

[@Schismarch]

Really cool process. I love that you share the mistakes and what you learn. Looks like great fun!

[@kristopheryoung9503]

Great videos! It was great meeting you Jason! I’m sure we all look forward to getting back down there! Was definitely an ausome time!

[@MarksGoneWicked]

I've seen meminer get some good results on dissolving calcite with various methods. Stuff like white vinegar may take a couple weeks to do the job, where muriatic acid might take a few days to a week.

[@hammahgawe]

You are sincere in teaching us, and you are a wonderful person and deserve to be rewarded in this world and the hereafter

[@seymourpro6097]

I was shown round a rock analysis lab once. Each sample coming in was crushed to about 2 mesh then coned and quartered, then one quarter was crushed again, coned and quartered again twice more, then the final quarter was analysed. All to make sure that the test sample was representative of the sample from the mine.

[@richardbeee]

Soda ash? Maybe a little, but you need a lot of borax. And silica. Used to smelt that same exact ore everyday.

[@rideshareafterdark5827]

A piece of cardboard will prevent the crucible sticking to the firebrick. Learned that one on Bigstacked's channel. :-)

[@frantiseklaluch6605]

Hi Jason, what a learning process... my first ever cupelling yesterday was... a disaster... I made a "cupel" out of MgO in small clay flower pot, MgO inside the pot cracked, gold microbeads are diffused in bismuth oxide cake... Well... I need to buy some good cupels... no so easy to make a good cupel...

[@rsaldivar4218]

Hey there Jason, I’m sold on using Oxalic Acid! It’s the best for tough specimens. Used heavily for Quartz crystal mining… makes the gold pop. 👍🏼

[@jeradbunn414]

Try using 3 parts hydrochloric acid and 1 part nitric acid as far as I been told this will melt or dissolve any thing but gold & Platinum unless brought to a boil then it will also dissolve or meltdown gold

[@РоманКоваленко-ю5д]

Как правильно подобрать шихту для выплавки катализаторов ??????

[@djcoshuko]

lead has value. what happens to the lead absorbed by the cupel? can you recover the lead? what would happen to the black glass waste??

[@jeeplove_8831]

Hey Jason, awesome work!! When using Muriatic Acid, it works much better 1:3 Muriatic: Hydrogen Peroxide (normal 3%). Muriatic also needs to be at room temperature (around 70°) to work efficiently. During the etching process, get a tooth brush or scrub brush, and brush each sample every now and then with hydrogen peroxide to remove the sediment it etched off, then put your sample back into the stainless steel bowl full of 1:3 solution (plastic will melt). This will give a new clean surface for the acid to keep working effectiently. The reason it turned green is possibly because it wasn't neutralized well enough. Neutralize it by letting your samples soak in a baking soda/water mixture or Windex (blue window cleaner) for at least 30mins. I love following your channel, keep up the amazing content!!! 🙏

[@andyroo8592]

Chris from VoGus prospecting boils specimens in caustic soda and water neutralises the caustic soda in tartaric acid, although this more dissolves the rock rather than cleans them up for display, but the gold does keep its form.

[@kevinackley7064]

Wow that was so cool have you tryed to desolve the lead with sulphuric acid that would reduce the amount of lead and make it easier to smelt the gold out

[@joemuncy2859]

With the muriatic acid as soon as the rock is out of the container you must dip it in vinegar to neutralize it and it won't turn that yellowish color I've been in masonry for a long time and its the number one best technique we use

[@Hawkeye2001]

It's been a LONG time since High School Chemistry (50 years). I'm enjoying the process, even if I'm rusty on all the chemicals and their reactions. The failures are just as important and educational. Thanks.

[@dizzious]

Duuude! I love the Pb/kno3 method. Such a time saver. Cupelling takes forever.

[@Whoisddepew]

I like to use iron out and let it soak over night and then rinse it off in warm dawn soap water and it cleans it up really good for me.

[@rodneyhaley1734]

Wow what a great result I learnt heaps from you and Jeff Williams who I’ve been watching for a few years now

[@kurtbogle2973]

I like your attitude. Honest and truthful. I'm more intrested in understanding how things are done myself.

[@CoinSilver800]

Interesting video, I'm not certain about the use of another acid to remove the lead as if you were to use Nitric you would then have a solution that is extremely high in lead and silver which is a real pain in the butt to deal with chemically. Maybe after the recovery with lead take that lead and then treat it like you did when recovering silver from galena and use zinc? I'm not as knowledgeable about the Parkes process in regards to if it would also collect the gold in the zinc removing it from the lead however you could always zap the lead left over with an XRF to see if it carried over any precious metals after the Parkes process. might be something to test. keep up the great work!

[@alanmoffat4680]

Sulfuric plus Nitric may be worth a try. However nitric oxides are liberated and care needed with these brown fumes.. Would that black "glass" clinker be similar to obsidian and could it be knapped to make stone age tools?

[@goldfever9118]

You could dissolve some of the cornflaked lead in muriatic to see how much lead it takes away. Love all your video's and the one with Jeff. I've learned so much from you. Keep 'em coming! 👍

[@stevenderham690]

Gaday, have you put quartz that hold nuggets in a camp 🔥 in a bowl ,half an hour later Cool down with water,soak it , crush with slight pressure

[@louiscaraballo6786]

The densest stuff is at the bottom when pouring the crucibles get every last drop even keep it tipped and heat up molds.

[@robmadaffari6270]

Jason if you ground the ore down to small enough particle size, why would you not try to leach the gold out in an controlled environment. eg lets say a 1000 gal tank? would that release a lot more AU?

[@rockbutcher]

That would work on the fine stuff, but not on the coarse. All of the gold mines I've worked at use a combination of gravity separation first, followed by your suggestion to get the really fine stuff.

[@paulcoover9197]

My friend used muriatic acid heated slowly over a low fire to completely clean the rust off his crystals. We are from Arkansas. We have some of the best clear quarts.

[@kebin760]

Gave you a like because you are not afraid to fail. Love all your videos! Keep it up!

[@Ligo-uh9gh]

Hey there! I'm not sure if anyone else has made this suggestion or if you have tried this yet, but my husband and I put one of our specimens in apple cider vinegar overnight and WOW!! Cleaned up crazy nice 👍 and took any iron sulfates clean off! Hope everyone has a great day! 😁

[@markussmith3135]

Try oxalic acid for your clean ups I use this to remove industrial fallout (steel) off my car it eats through iron oxide doesn’t take too long either

[@jeffwalker4774]

Could you give a brief description of the most efficient way to get the gold extracted.

[@michiganprospectors]

I like how you share both your success and your mistakes on video. I have a larger, DIY channel where I often show my mistakes or ask questions and get help from my viewers. We can all learn together this way.

[@gmorgan5215]

I use a HOT muriatic or sulfuric acid bath for about 12 to 24 hrs. The sulfuric acid will not dissolve the gold and the muriatic acid does a nice job of cleaning the rust off of the quartz.

[@NobodyknowsPi]

Would zinc work as a cupelling agent instead of lead? It seems it would be cheaper to just throw a handful of pennies (post 1982) in with the gold to cupel instead of buying lead. Assuming the metal you are working with doesn't already contain lead.

[@murlbailer3755]

I saw another video were a miner was told by someone else to heat it really hot. It seemed to have made it a lot easier to extract?🐎🌻✌️

[@JamesLeMaire-z3j]

Very Informative to acquire for beginner thank you I'm learning so much the videos from Jeff ,Dan Chris and yourself thank all

[@jeffhoffner6967]

I use Iron out for my quartz pieces, works very well

[@calebfast8088]

I needed this exact video! Thank you! Love this channel. :) Been prepping to hit some of my own ore and trying to figure out what chemical is cheapest and easiest.

[@72Trayster]

Have you ever tried vibrating table kind of like concrete vibrator to get the air bubbles out and make the heaviest elements sink faster just a crazy thought.

[@danielp4507]

Would putting your cool down mold on a vibrating table help the heavies settle faster?

[@capt.stubby245]

Jason do you know Sreetips? Look him up on KZbin. I'd love to see a collaboration of you're work with his work. It would be a win win as you will get some of his subscribers a he would get some of yours. Not to mention the good videos of your use of heat and his use of chemicals. Y'all get in touch and see what kind of videos you can two can come up with. I'd pay to watch those videos.

[@WagonLoads]

What if you ground everything to a fine powder and run it through a sluice? Also, I think it would look nice to make jewelry out of a mix of that black glass and gold.. Is that black glass you got, the same material black sand gold panners find gold in?

[@thestrawberrypatch5644]

I have had bad experiences with K-Wool, Cer-Wool or Ceramic Wool Fiber (pick your name for it). Got it in my clothes and it found its way in the wash where it wound up on my underpants! No washing didn't remove it! It did a fantastic job redistributing it!

[@tomcook5813]

My auto shop teacher had a mine at Cerro Gordo California, he taught me Muratic acid method, I find it fascinating the different waysyiur covering. Hello Mr Robert Desmarais if your out there

[@MikkellTheImmortal]

There's an old saying that goes "a wise man learns from other's mistakes, a fool learns from their own. So let me be your fool."

[@dynomania]

An old mate of mine used to dissolve all the quartz in molten caustic soda. Dangerous, but it just leaves the gold behind. Haven't found any videos about it though.

[@JimFinlayson]

Jason, thanks for sharing your investigations. I have to say I really enjoy watching the slag freeze in the cone mold. I suggest a super slo mo of that in the future as a short. Keep the videos coming. They are some of my favorites.

[@jfitzgerad72]

Mix the Myriotic acid With the peroxide that's how I clean up gold from chips And circuit boards 60/40 acid to peroxide a couple days and you should be very happy with the results 😀

[@erich9244]

Awesome info Jason! Great experiments I love watching even if it "fails" Keep on keeping on.

[@conover1978]

One thing I’ve seen other smelters do is periodically while smelting take a big metal spoon and skim off the top layer separating it in a pile next to where there’s smelting then continuing their smelt. I was just watching how you poured it into the reversed pyramid mold and there’s chunks in it.

[@Alrik.]

Your process always seems very accurate, with lots of measuring and knowing where "lost" gold went to. But then at the end you use round percentages like 50% or 66% based on the colour of the metal bead which arguably nullifies much of the previous carful calculations. It could very well be that you know what you're talking about, but I'd like to see a more scientific confirmation. I understand this is often difficult because you have tiny beads weighing fractions of grams, but now you had over 6g. I hope you do some sort of test with these beads (test stone with acid or even x-rayed) to confirm your 66% purity estimation.

[@christopherfritz.bigsaving]

It is the glue he is sniffing.

[@squishy312]

Nitric acid will clean up the gold great, but it will actually dissolve some of the gold. Muriatic acid will work better than sulphuric, but if you do not clean it off and then neutralize the acid, it will oxidize any of the non-precious metals almost instantly. Most of the chemicals will work better if you boil them. Muriatic acid is used in masonry to clean bricks and rocks before coating with a protective coating. That first pour almost looked like granite.

[@RiskyVentureMinerals]

@mbmmllc Add salt to your vinegar. The combination of salt and vinegar creates sodium acetate and hydrogen chloride which worked phenomenally to clean up gold. Also, Use “iron out” to remove the iron rust stain. Removing Quartz from gold specimens is best done with hydrofluoric acid, this acid is extremely dangerous and must be used with proper precautions including a vent hood. But it works really well for dissolving Quartz.

[@Vicgyver15]

what about doing a gravity sift at fine/1/8 in. then an acid burn/ heated w/ filtering cleaning then smelt minimal carbon/borax mix

[@TheMilwaukieDan]

Loving the science and evaluative math involved here. Of you aren’t experimenting we aren’t learning. Great job

[@SilverScorpion]

Super video. I would love to see it done both ways with the same sample to see which way is the best recovery. Thank you for doing this video

[@romanchomenko2912]

Jason have you got a hand held X-ray spectrometer to tell what elements are in the high ore if lead is present then you have to use a froth flotation cell to separate the lead ore and if there's copper as well again the froth cell to be used . The lead and copper is now separated but quartz is a bugger its inert to acids so I don't know the boiling range for quartz or just use a shaker table which you know .

[@warrenlandis6176]

you might be able to get rid of the rust and reddish stains with Oxalic acid, I used to use that when getting samples while in New Mexico rock and mineral hunting I just boiled it with a cup of Oxalic acid and rinsed it and dried it. Years later I used the same process to remove the heavy red rust oxide from shipwreck gold coins only for them I added clean strips of Aluminum

[@ericbruns888]

Great experience thanks J.

[@g-dcomplex1609]

i've used a propane torch on super high grade gold ore from california to heat and quench the quartz into shattering off of the gold without harming the gold veins, another thing i do is take a wet saw and slice thin slabs off of high grade samples, then polish the slab/s on one side to expose the precious metals, then i sell, gift or trade them usually to collectors and jewelers for making jewelry.

[@kencarbon2346]

enjoyed watching your video great work nice to see you try different methods of bring out the best specsmains of gold. I glad to see your explanation and experience and excitement working with gold ore.🤗

[@jonathancardy9941]

having an extra cone mould around might help. That way you won't feel so tempted to turn a mould over while the lead is still molten

[@kccorliss3922]

Is there a smelting guide book available? I would think this stuff has been done before….

[@cditzler6313]

to add another liquid to your variety I see you have a big bag of potassium nitrate get a distiller set up add drain opener to the potas and distill over some nitric that will be handy in all your experiments

[@Boosted98gsx]

Also, try Peracetic acid to reduce the lead away from the other more precious bits. The reactant is toxic though and can be absorbed through your skin (lead acetate), but then another reaction with MgSO4 (epsom salt) will take it over to a natural, less toxic salt, lead sulfate.

[@Goalsplus]

Maybe a two or three step process is worth a try because different chemicals react with different undesirables. A product to try is one of the safe rust removers which seem to work differently to the normal acids.

[@busbey61]

Jason, I have a thought... Send your waste or slag to Sreetips and see if he can recover any gold from your waste or slag to get a margin of error? Just a thought....