Gold Assaying & Smelting: Soda/Iron Method

[@risaias]

You do the community a great service. Thanks for the videos.

[@mbmmllc]

I appreciate that!

[@pneumatic00]

I really appreciate you doing and showing all these experiments. It's true that not a whole lot equipment is required, but it's not exactly a casual undertaking, what with the toxics and the high temps. It's great to see the whole process(es)

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks!

[@ChrisRalph]

Good Video, excellent work. Going to be doing some tests along this line with gold / silver ores from Nevada. The contained galena should make for a self fluxing material with its own lead. The old assay methods along this line used nails for iron.

[@mbmmllc]

Sounds great! Let us know how it works out!

[@alanmoffat4680]

My mother's first father-in law was an Englishman, trained as an assayer in the USA and worked on the Croyden goldfields in Far North Queensland , Australia in the 1890s to 1910's. Guess he would have done much like you do today. As a side-line for the community, he would make fireworks for New Years eve celebrations.

[@gortnewton4765]

I like the high quality analysis. I'm a total novice but learning lots.

[@Hartcore11]

Thanks for adding the captions. It helps understand what you're doing and what's going on with the process.

[@mbmmllc]

Glad you like them!

[@rodolfotome4630]

Good morning, just to inform you that when you are going to generate a basic slag in the foundry, you must use basic crucibles to prevent the attack of the slag to eat the crucible, you must use magnesia - chromite crucibles with the following characteristics: MgO 62.5% - Cr2O3 17% - Al2O3 6.5% - Fe2O3 11% - SiO2 2%. As a general rule, if the foundry generates a basic slag, basic crucibles should be used (magnesia - chromite) and for foundries that generate acid slags, acid crucibles should be used (High alumina - silica) which has the following characteristics: Al2O3 70% - Fe2O3 2% & SiO2 28%. In the particular case of sulfide ore smelting if you are going to generate basic slags, just make sure that the crucible is basic base (magnesia - chromite) or if you use acid crucibles (Alumina - Silica) you must change the formulation in such a way that you generate an acid slag, I recommend the following formula: sulfide ore: 130 grams Borax: 80 grams Soda ash: 124 grams Silica: 7.12 grams Lead: 38 grams o 41 grams fo litharge. Charcoal: 2.5 grams To determine the amount of iron I suggest weighing the iron bar before and after melting, the bar should be cold at the time of weighing, the difference in weight would be the amount of iron to add for that mineral. I hope you find the information useful, thank you for your attention and have a nice day.

[@behrouzkawarizadeh4152]

Excellent work Jasen. I bought a shaker from you a while ago. I am going to order the hammer mill too. I am in the circuit board mining business.

[@Michael-rg7mx]

The filters with an absorbent part in the cartridge are very short lived. Most are only rated for 1, 8 hour shift. You can stretch it by pulling the cartridges and taping the in and outlet. Put in a ziplok with desiccant packs. Most are worthless after a week.

[@damxgopak457]

I made the furnace per your instructions it works great I have followed all your tests closely and I am now able to retrieve precious metals from my one man lode mining op.thank you your info has changed my game.

[@mbmmllc]

Excellent! So glad it helped!

[@ChatterontheWire]

Thanks for the safety info at the end!

[@mbmmllc]

You bet!

[@markselten4985]

Would just like to see you twist up a proper crucible handling tool to get it out of the furnace. Would hate the thing to crack while your holding it with only some multi-grips. Great info though, I'd love to give it a shot one day when I can afford all the equipment. Thanks for posting

[@larrywalker3137]

I enjoy watching your videos and watching you smelt the ore and stuff and seeing the little beads I'd like to be set up to be able to do it but I don't have enough material to run keep making the videos and we'll keep watching thank you

[@mbmmllc]

Sounds great!

[@kerzwhile]

Have I mentioned how great this channel is? 🤔

[@travismiller5548]

Betcha that white halo seen in the cone mold is quartz bloom, from the silica sand. I'm a glassblower and neon bender- when i work quartz, that stuff gets everywhere and you have to basically chase it off the work with more fire.

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks for the info

[@digger105337]

Interesting stuff! Thanks for taking us along!

[@mbmmllc]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@glendibben2381]

Awesome Video.

[@abbasal-hamdanitrq5307]

My best wishes to your wonderful channel 🏆🥇

[@mbmmllc]

Thank you so much

[@pirobot668beta]

Fun fact re: lye and silica/glass. A strong lye solution will etch most grades of glass in a short time! Lye will 'spoil' over time, absorbing CO2 from the air to become sodium carbonate. Still pretty basic stuff, not sure if it would work as a lye replacement.

[@bobadalnoboj4312]

My conclusion from that video: Fe is an enemy in gold chemistry but it is a friend in a gold mettalurgy)

[@RalphReagan]

Thank you for making the video

[@mbmmllc]

My pleasure!

[@newmexicogold2234]

Nice technique it's pretty good I'm going to try it and I'll get back to you see how it works as you know all the soil is different so be testing out this New Mexico soil ...... I'll let you know how it goes by the way I need price on your turn key system or whatever you were calling it through the day anyway cool beard bro later keep in touch this is Joe with New Mexico gold and later

[@newmexicogold2234]

Oops meant cool vid...

[@LilingzenceramicCoLtd]

Nice.

[@GSProspecting]

That was cool stuff. Keeping it AU% GOLD SQUAD OUT!!

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks!

[@SaltyPirate71]

You could see the crucible failing as you pulled it out of the furnace on the first pour. I was expecting it to dump the contents on the bench or floor.

[@yashashreeclarice]

im glad to be here

[@ataali4279]

Hello. Can i remove the iron by magnatic and then make melting??

[@rickb5946]

Excellent video as usual!

[@mbmmllc]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@r.z4702]

Salam dari indonesia penambang tradisional🙏

[@joshuamoses1370]

Id like to luren more about gold mining and they hole proses of it

[@minermikesouthernusa4017]

Any suggestions for a flux to help get the fe out of our gold smelts ? We are a small mine and use CN vat leach loads onto carbon. But when we strip the carbon and plate the gold /silver onto steel wool it is making the Dore magnetic suggestions?

[@hardrockuniversity7283]

The tailings sample seems to be quite similar to the head ore. Any explanation?

[@mbmmllc]

Yes, good question. They weren't from the same source, it was just stuff I had laying around :) The head ore was low grade and the tailings had more gold than they probably should have :)

[@hardrockuniversity7283]

@@mbmmllc Yep, that can happen. :-)

[@louisgandy4139]

Thanks for this video Jason. How does this 'roast' sulphide, what does the iron bar do and other chemicals act during this process? How much precious metal is lost to the slag? I've got a large quantity of pyrite and quartz vein ore and since there's probably very little precious metal in it, wondered if this method would be efficient or am I better off roasting first?

[@mbmmllc]

Best route is to concentrate your values and then roast and smelt the concentrates. This is a good way to gain some info on your material. Thanks for watching!

[@skulk99fox]

Sulfur dioxide plus water makes sulfurous acid H2 S03. Just a minor correction

[@kevinm3349]

Have you tried doing Ferric chloride oxidation of sulfides? Supposedly it doesn't release any fumes, resulting only in S^0 sulfur.

[@micheleshaw4280]

how big of crucible can that lil furnace hold that you cupel in Jason

[@joesask857]

thanks man

[@mbmmllc]

Any time

[@jacobgodinez4926]

How many times can you use the Coppell? I'm sure that's spelt wrong. You can't use the furnace? You need an electric dill?

[@georgyandreev9992]

Great ideas !

[@mbmmllc]

Glad you like them!

[@itcontractorsunion4795]

I have a question: If you put a slab of Kaowool over the Cupels, when you heat them in that electric furnace, will that absorb the fumes that come off and help prevent them being released into the air? (Not to mention your lungs), and for that matter dirtying up the inside of the furnace also. Thanks.

[@TheMontyYoakum]

I think the molten lead needs to be able to "breath" so all the base metals will be oxidized

[@mbmmllc]

The lead needs access to the oxygen for the reaction to take place. When I open the door it looks like lots of fumes because the furnace is flooded with O2, but when the door is just cracked no fumes come off because there isn't enough O2 for the lead to "burn". Over 99% of the Pb goes into the cupel during this process if done correctly.

[@terrytish8756]

Any concern over lead poisoning with the added lead?

[@charliem989]

Is the lead you use adding something to the final bead? Those two small beads were tiny and silver, and that one sample seemed pretty devoid of anything but quartz.

[@yossarianmnichols9641]

Safety is job 1

[@shaneyork300]

I'm curious as to what you use for a quepell (no idea how to spell) when you are doing larger amounts or what size? Have a Great Day My Friend!

[@shaneyork300]

I tried to even Google the spelling and had no luck.

[@jdeluisa]

Great video

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks!

[@gingerdude94]

Great video. So the crucibles get heavier as they absorb the base metals? How many times heavier can they get?

[@mbmmllc]

They are pretty heavy when they are full of PbO. probably about 3 times heavier

[@JamesJohnson-kw9gh]

Hey not to complain to much ,but when your writing things on your platform can you move it to the middle of screen so everyone can read what your trying to say thanks .jim

[@mredd2nd]

That is am awesome table top cupel furnace there is it your own making?

[@skSoni-br7dt]

Jason can you tell me what should be added to get gold or silver out of 100g stone soil and in what quantity?

[@Name-ot3xw]

Interesting how fast the lye eats through those cheap cruicibles

[@Hartcore11]

What happens if you use just regular laundry detergent borax instead of anhydrous borax?

[@jimmyhouse5276]

I'm just wondering whether I understood correctly that you added 50 g of lead on each smelting and then converted to lead to lead oxide fumes. So for the eight smeltings you converted 500g over a pound of lead in to lead oxide fumes that settled down in the area around your burnout oven. Is that correct or did I misunderstand something

[@dlth4mza65]

Nice video sir. But, how do you know that the iron tube job is complete?

[@vahagnmelikyan2906]

Can I smelt ore inside electric furnace?

[@vahagnmelikyan2906]

Is 3kg crucible electric furnace good for ore smelting?

[@josecallejas3549]

How do you know what kind of flux to use on your ore? Also what's the ratio of borax and soda ash compare to your ore?

[@mrgreenswelding2853]

Can you do cupelling gold plated computer pins please. I know lots of people who would love to know how to do it properly. I will share on a Facebook page.

[@spotlobac7694]

outstanding question, i to deal with many plated pins / nitric, would a cone mold work melt the plastic sockets to

[@lauraschimke4912]

@@spotlobac7694 I do too.

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks for the video idea. I will keep it in mind

[@USMiner]

Good stuff, I've learned a lot binge watching your videos over the last week! Just to be clear, this method does not work with iron pyrites, they would just be absorbed into the slag along with the FeS created by the iron bar+sulfur from the copper, lead and arsenic sulfides, right?

[@mbmmllc]

Actually this does work well for pyrite. The iron bar does release some metallic iron to convert everything to FeS (iron pyrite is FeS2) any gold will be released and collected by the collector metal

[@USMiner]

@@mbmmllc Cool, thanks for clarifying that.

[@USMiner]

@@mbmmllc I'm still trying to wrap my head around this in the case of iron pyrite, could you explain the process a bit more. What is happening to the FeS2 during this process? Is it decomposing thermally into FeS during the start of the smelt, or is it being oxidized by the Lye or somehow snagging an O atom from the Borax? If it thermally decomposes to FeS, how does it release any gold contained before being absorbed into the slag? I can see the iron bar taking up the spare S atom, but wouldn't gold still be locked up in the sulfide if it wasn't oxidized by something during the smelt?

[@srnkp]

I liked you write discription , I'm Malayalam language I don't know inglish speech

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks for watching

[@vahagnmelikyan2906]

How to properly measure the flux ratio based on volume or weight?

[@andermac1]

What type of cupola are you using? I know bone ash is one type. Where do you get yours at and at what cost? Great video. I subscribed👍

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks for watching. I get mine from Legend Mine Supply. They are cheap, like a $1 each

[@1kreature]

A bit worried about that respirator description. A P100 is just the particulate part of the filter. It does protect from fumes, not vapors. SO2 is considered a Vapor. The difference is apparantly how the metal or chemical behaves. Is it still particles or not... Your filters are pink so i assume they are 3M's 60929S P100 combined filters for Mercury Vapor/Chlorine/Sulfur Dioxide Gas and particulate. Not just P100 filters. Please guys be safe, do not use a normal P100 filter for this. It will not stop any gasses unless it is a combined filter made for the task.

[@mbmmllc]

Thank you for your safety concerns

[@auandrewshouseofrocks3824]

Why did you move away from the sodium carbonate for this method? The sodium carbonate has a pH of 11.6 and caustic soda has a pH of 14.0. They are both very basic and should work the same right? The sodium carbonate would be a safer method and looked like it worked in your previous video on this method.

[@mbmmllc]

Good question. I have a video coming out soon describing the difference in detail, but essentially with the soda ash a bunch more material needs to be drove off and it tends to boil and froth in the crucible. The lye melts quick, doesn't boil, and doesn't require as much weight for the same amount of ore. More info in an up coming video, thanks for asking

[@auandrewshouseofrocks3824]

@@mbmmllc Awesome! Thanks for the explanation.

[@HDshovelEd]

When you cupelling the lead, are they a one-time-use thing or can you use a multiple times?

[@jamesedwardson605]

one time..

[@TheMontyYoakum]

Bit of both. Each cupel can only absorb a certain amount oxides, once it hits that point its done. But a single cupel can be used for multiple small amounts until it becomes saturated

[@mbmmllc]

Exactly Monty, I have used one cuple several times for small batches of 10 grams of lead at a time, but they do become saturated and then a new one is needed

[@HDshovelEd]

@@mbmmllc , cool beans. I had no idea.. I dont smelt anything . but find it interesting

[@user-re1wi6vu8c]

ما في أحد يتكلم عربي يخبر ايش يعمل هاذا

[@short-fuse]

How long or how do you when your Cupellation is done?

[@iamthenotbenamed365]

Brother, how many Kilo will fit in that tabletop and can it indicate in C as well (in fact a EURO model) ...

[@mbmmllc]

www.tabletopfurnace.com/

[@Jkauppa]

electric, electric welder, heat source, resistance or arc

[@Jkauppa]

bubble the output through water, makes you sulfuric acid

[@Jkauppa]

so2 chimney

[@rookierollhunter8652]

What respirator do you recommend for fumes ? When you say 'BASIC', what are you referring to?

[@2fathomsdeeper]

P100 rated for acid vapor. I use a Honeywell that can handle HCl, HF, SO2, and others. Basic as in acids and bases (alkali).

[@mbmmllc]

Yes, exactly 2fathomsdepper. I use a P100 and basic meaning high pH

[@Brian00071]

How much money does the quepells cost?

[@mbmmllc]

About $1 a piece

[@hellohello5550]

@@mbmmllc any link where to purchase

[@user-sj9cl9bp3d]

حلو

[@ColetteXZeynepG]

Where can I buy metal melting oven ?

[@milkmansteve1]

Use copper not iron if you hope to get more gold out.. iron is a terribly dirty collector/reducer.

[@spotlobac7694]

do common sulfides have any gold, crumbled quartz & pyrite not close to any mines.

[@mbmmllc]

Probably not, but an assay would tell you

[@spotlobac7694]

@@mbmmllc i crushed a lb. & roasted it, the put it in hot aqua regia, it released shiney floaters that turned the solution oarnge but no drop , nothing.

[@killmimes]

Wouldnt copper pipe suck the sulphur out better?

[@mbmmllc]

Yes, but then there would be a copper matte that would dissolve a large portion of the precious metals. Thanks for the idea!

[@aumetalmental8403]

I want one of those ovens, or one similar. Do you have a maker and model info to share. That would be perfect for my new project/idea?

[@mbmmllc]

www.tabletopfurnace.com/

[@user-md2pd8zz8g]

Not exact chemistry, bro. The amount of chemicals u add for a 100% recovery is to be calculated based on the exact amount of sulphide in ore...if take in cosideration ONLY slphides... but you have interesting ALCHEMISTRY experiment, like!

[@MsDavid159951]

How much time take to melt all materials in crucible in air blower furance

[@mbmmllc]

about 30 mins from a cold start, about 20 mins when hot

[@MsDavid159951]

@@mbmmllc thanks

[@glennmurphy9297]

CAN YOU RE-RUN YOUR FIRST RESULT CRUSH SIZED ROCK TO SMALLER GRADES IN THE SAME CRUSHER?

[@mbmmllc]

Yes, you can get a little finer grind by re-running

[@glennmurphy9297]

@@mbmmllc THE DESIGN I'M WORKING ON IS ROTARY, USING A MUCH MORE AGGRESSIVE AND ROBUST SYSTEM OF IMPELLERS THAT VARY FROM RIGID TO SWINGING. RUN IT OFF BELTS WITH A SMALL CAR DIESEL AND FEED IT WITH A BACKHOE OR LOADER. IT ALL GETS DOWN TO BURNING ROCK AFTER THE FREE GOLD IS OUT. USE A REVERSE-SCALED MULTI-SCREEN SET-UP SLOPED AT BACK OF CRUSHER VESSEL WITH FINE SCREEN FIRST, THE LARGER GRADES FOLLOWING IN ORDER, PUT WALLS BETWEEN SCREENS DOWN TO CATCHMENTS, AND BOB'S YOUR UNCLE. CENTER SHAFT IS A 3" SCREW-JACK LEG, HAS HOLLOWS FOR WELDING PRIMARY ROCK CHUNK BLADES FROM TRUCK LEAF SPRINGS. BLADES ANGLED TO PROPEL ROCK THROUGH CRUSHER, CRUSHER TUBE IS 16" WELL PIPE FROM A SCRAP YARD, 4 FT. LONG. (WHOLE UNIT BUILT FROM SCRAP YARD STEEL). INTERESTING, CREATIVE, AND VERY HARD THINGS SPINNING IN GRADUATED PROXIMITY WITHIN. FINISH WITH NICHROME CHAIN MAIL CURTAINS JUST BEFORE SCREENS FOR ULTRA FINE SMELT DUST OR TABLE WORK.

[@aminrobio9430]

How to separate gold from copper without chemicals pliiz

[@mbmmllc]

Thank you for the video suggestion! You can search our channel by going to the channel page and typing in keywords to find a video similar to what you're talking about here, but it is from 5 years ago so maybe we should do an update!

[@aminrobio9430]

Thank you my friend, but when you are speaking, I do not understand what you are saying. I translate English but Arabic. I hope that you will explain to me through the scribes for me so that I can translate as an example

[@BillMulholland1]

🍻👍

[@user-fw1nu6qd6p]

How many G side and borx

[@mbmmllc]

About 50-100 grams of borax

[@user-fw1nu6qd6p]

@@mbmmllc thank you

[@tangermghogha6218]

اهلا وسهلا

[@mbmmllc]

thanks!

[@charlesspringer4709]

It really bugs me to see the lid off your lye :-) I can just picture it turning into a solid lump, then getting wetter and wetter!

[@yashashreeclarice]

check me in sometime

[@জারিগান80]

i want to contact with you brother. pls help me