Like andrew case said, cupel it with lead on portland cement and don't let it cool with the flux in the mold. It hardens quite quick. Even better melt it with a torch in a melting dish (some borax is enough after cupeling), and while poring it keep the torch on it. Move the torch along with the gold to the mold en after it is evenly divided in the mold, let it cool for the perfect gold bar. Flux is only necessary when you ad lead as an collector metal. After that you can cupel in a stainless steel bowl covered with a thick layer of portland cement, make a totally smooth hole with a big soup serving spoon. Carefully put the collector beed (lead with gold beed) in the middle and fire it up! Very very effective! To make the bar totally perfect and solid, you can put it in a tumbler together with 18k gold round bals (on low rate naturally). The bar wil not damage and after 2/3 hours you wil have a perfect solid bar. If you want to do it next level, try to get your hands on an induction heater, saves you time and better for the environment!!! I hope you will read this after 8 months! Love your personality! And i hope your heart is recovering well! and your beard naturally :P:P
As a welder I can tell you copper turns really grey steel colored when it's seriously hot. Actually heating a copper sheet is a really pretty thing to do. It makes all these rainbow patterns until it finally gets hot enough and then it turns grey. It's something the do with the heat as well as an oxide layer as once it turns grey from heat it won't go back until you sand/polish it and get that outer layer off. I think (from the things I've seen) that gold like that that's holding onto the impurities just needs held at a higher temperature for longer so it burns all that crap out and leaves just the gold behind.
Hey dan I spent 4-5 years working the blast furnaces for my father in laws silver refinery. We had 6 at one time, most of the time we ran 2 at a time. We build them so that we could oscillate them too and fro, back and forth, This movement helped sink the metal to the bottom and helped us pull/separate much more silver out of the molten solution as we otherwise would have had with a non-rocking furnace or crucible.
hello from Ontario the wife and myself ordered a bag of your paydirt as well as a bag of peridot samples and had an awesome time going through it and finding all kinds of gems and lots of fine gold and a beautiful piece of ocean picture stone. We cant wait to make some cool jewelry from it. Keep up the great content we love watching your videos!
Was a caster. I was the largest buyer of sterling silver shot in the US. Started making my own shot from my Tree scraps. Did cast gold. Casted 22k, 18k, white, yellow and Russian rose. Of course my casting machine was a $50,000 vacuum machine.
also dan you don't even need to mention the subscribers thing or liking videos .... your character and content are enough to attract people to your channel. Don't follow the masses just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean you need too ;)
I love the way something ALWAYS goes sideways, or as my Jr High band teacher would say, "Anything almost right is wrong!" I have noticed that in the gold refineries they have a big torch/flame on the entire mold during the poor and as the gold cools - and no flux in the pour. Sometimes they sprinkle a bit of white stuff as well. You could give that a try. I wold like to see what happens.
Excellent video, Dan. Fascinating process and I appreciate you taking the time to explain the rationale behind the various steps. Thank you all for sharing.
Hello there. Love your channel and the fact that I'm learning something new. Always entertaining. And you always put a smile on my face when I see you without the hat. With it you look like everyone's favourite jolly uncle, without it, a brutal biker. 😁 All the best to you and your family. 👍❤
I've seen precious metals cast into graphite ingot moulds with little to no flux but with a flame playing onto the mould and then the top of the ingot, the heat seems to facilitate a nice smooth pour and a well formed ingot.
Hey Dan, I have my first shot at panning in Washington , CA. Its an old old mining town. Anywho I found my first tiny picker about 10 flakes and a tiny rock that appears to have gold stuck to it or running through it. It was awesome. I credit my find to you and your awesome videos. Thanks for all the tips. They all thought I was a pro, I said "no this is my first time, I just watched a lot of Dan hurds videos on youtube" hope it brings you a subscription or two. Thanks again!!!
Do any refining texts or experts have ideas of what makes gold brittle when it's usually ductile. I would try dissolving it in aqua regia and precipitating the gold and remelting it to a bar. (see Sreetips channel)
+1 for sreetips - though you want to be really careful when you get into the chemical refining. sreetips uses a fume hood, wears protective gear and has years of experience doing this. I would also suggest mbmmllc for a lot of info on smelting and cupelling.
You beat me to it. This was my thoughts exactly. Go to solution and precipitate out the pure gold. Only way at this point. Also Dan could learn a little about casting gold in graphite molds. No glass needed. Sreetips uses no real flux for casting just some borax to keep the paper ashes down while melting the gold out of the filter paper. That silica likely ruined the mold. Casting in the old iron or steel molds may be different but graphite has no need of such.
I was just thinking the same thing, I've been a jeweler and bullion caster for a long time and have done it like shown in the video. Lately I use very little flux and create my own molds using kinetic sand which works great for unique designs while retaining some of the nice pour lines. Whenever I use a lot of flux I lose control of the pour and then the cast is never even.
I just wanted to say the same thing. I absolutely agree with you on that. Steetips is the best our ther. It should also help with the copper issue. I think its maybe silver mixes with led on top of the beet.
Looks like your son is picking up a lot of useful, old-school techniques and information. Someday he will follow in your footsteps and keep the art alive...
Dan buddy i could tell you were a fricken teacher from the beginning trying to use less scientific terms and easy to understand explanations love it .. would love to talk shop about fluxing sluicing and smelting
Thanks Dan ...Love seeing you just " playing around " you can learn a lot just playing around..........P.S....Hope your feeling a lot better an that dad was ok with his injured wrist
Nearly pure gold with just a touch of sulfides cleans up really nicely with aqua regia followed by metabisulfite precipitation. I did that with some small bits of highly impure stuff I found. Have some other metals and strange compounds that settled out of the leftover stuff. One metal fell out of the hot acid almost at once as it cooled even before the precip, so I think that must be platinum group.
Cool video Dan. When you said you were going to use flour for carbon the only thing that popped in my head was copper biscuits. I guess I was thinking about the bread my wife baked for dinner
I think you should test the gold with XRF. It may have arsenic in it which makes for a brittle alloy. It was problem the London mint had with gold from Australia in the mid 19th century
Glad to see your Dad back in action. MBMMLLC.com is a great place to learn about refining gold. Great young man there. They sell mining machines for little small operations to large plants. You might find what you need for hard rock mining Dan. It's Mount Baker Mining Machinery LLC. Great video. Watch Bigstacked in Australia for smelting brass,copper and aluminum. He's a pro at it now. Great video Dan👍
That was a very interesting and fascinating to watch. We're buying a travel trailer and taking to nature very soon. I'll start a TH-cam channel and document our journey. Thanks for the wonderful content. You are one of my favorite TH-camr's to watch.
This was a very interesting video. I have some raw pieces of copper I found metal detecting in Upper Michigan. I would love to send you a couple of pieces that you can smelt down or do what you want with.
Hey,question? I understand there is a special light for hunting gems at night,like uv or black light. Can you explain? Thanks Dale.keep up the great videos.
If you were really concerned about the fumes (even the limited exposure you'd get from being outside) couldn't you build a fume hood onto the bench to put the furnace into? And a scrubber onto the exhaust to capture the SO2?
Nice vid Dan. I’ve done some copper and bronze casting and the flux is mostly/partly about keeping the oxygen out. I guess it also takes out other impurities. Gold being almost inert I’m not sure it needs as much flux, especially in the final pour. It seems to interrupt the flow of the gold too.
Well HELLO AGAIN Dan! Thanks for another very interesting video...thanks! I always learn so much from them!! I may have overlooked it but...do you have s video on how you made that cool crusher? I’ve had numerous occasions where that would have come in handy. thanks again and please....KEEP THOSE VIDEOS COMING!!
Poor Dad. Hope your owie heals quickly. Another fun video Dan. Thanks for including us.
Yay, Dad is back!!!
* oh no, just saw the injured arm, hope he heals quickly!
Like andrew case said, cupel it with lead on portland cement and don't let it cool with the flux in the mold. It hardens quite quick. Even better melt it with a torch in a melting dish (some borax is enough after cupeling), and while poring it keep the torch on it. Move the torch along with the gold to the mold en after it is evenly divided in the mold, let it cool for the perfect gold bar. Flux is only necessary when you ad lead as an collector metal. After that you can cupel in a stainless steel bowl covered with a thick layer of portland cement, make a totally smooth hole with a big soup serving spoon. Carefully put the collector beed (lead with gold beed) in the middle and fire it up! Very very effective! To make the bar totally perfect and solid, you can put it in a tumbler together with 18k gold round bals (on low rate naturally). The bar wil not damage and after 2/3 hours you wil have a perfect solid bar. If you want to do it next level, try to get your hands on an induction heater, saves you time and better for the environment!!! I hope you will read this after 8 months! Love your personality! And i hope your heart is recovering well! and your beard naturally :P:P
As a welder I can tell you copper turns really grey steel colored when it's seriously hot. Actually heating a copper sheet is a really pretty thing to do. It makes all these rainbow patterns until it finally gets hot enough and then it turns grey. It's something the do with the heat as well as an oxide layer as once it turns grey from heat it won't go back until you sand/polish it and get that outer layer off.
I think (from the things I've seen) that gold like that that's holding onto the impurities just needs held at a higher temperature for longer so it burns all that crap out and leaves just the gold behind.
Lovely Dayna is gardening away in the background...lol..! Love the refining/casting vids.
I think that it's awesome that you and your family are so close.
God bless you all!
Hey dan I spent 4-5 years working the blast furnaces for my father in laws silver refinery. We had 6 at one time, most of the time we ran 2 at a time. We build them so that we could oscillate them too and fro, back and forth, This movement helped sink the metal to the bottom and helped us pull/separate much more silver out of the molten solution as we otherwise would have had with a non-rocking furnace or crucible.
Have you tried smelting it with a collector metal (like lead) and cupeling it? That should clear the sulfide out.
Very interesting video. Nice to meet Evan. Hopefully pops heals up quickly. Hate you lost the copper bb. Nice gold bar.
hello from Ontario the wife and myself ordered a bag of your paydirt as well as a bag of peridot samples and had an awesome time going through it and finding all kinds of gems and lots of fine gold and a beautiful piece of ocean picture stone. We cant wait to make some cool jewelry from it. Keep up the great content we love watching your videos!
That is the best backdrop in the world Dan! I joined Evans channel and will check it out later. Keep working on improving that gold piece
Was a caster. I was the largest buyer of sterling silver shot in the US. Started making my own shot from my Tree scraps. Did cast gold. Casted 22k, 18k, white, yellow and Russian rose. Of course my casting machine was a $50,000 vacuum machine.
Glad to see your keeping your wife busy, weeds are important!
also dan you don't even need to mention the subscribers thing or liking videos .... your character and content are enough to attract people to your channel. Don't follow the masses just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean you need too ;)
Love to see your boy following in your adventurous footsteps. Love you're videos and the education they provide. Keep doing what you do!
Thank you! Will do!
@@Danhurd
Wow, I want you to thank me for supporting you My heartfelt condolences to your father
I love the way something ALWAYS goes sideways, or as my Jr High band teacher would say, "Anything almost right is wrong!" I have noticed that in the gold refineries they have a big torch/flame on the entire mold during the poor and as the gold cools - and no flux in the pour. Sometimes they sprinkle a bit of white stuff as well. You could give that a try. I wold like to see what happens.
Excellent video, Dan. Fascinating process and I appreciate you taking the time to explain the rationale behind the various steps. Thank you all for sharing.
love the way you show your mistakes and keep us on the learning curve with you. thanks Dan , hope your dads ok soon.
Really fascinating. You ended up with a beauty. Well done 👏 Your chemistry knowledge is excellent.
That gold definitely looks shinier and more malleable at the end of the video that it did towards the beginning. Nice work!
Excellent Work Dan 🤠 Thank you for sharing with us. God Bless 🙏
That IS a nice looking lil gold bar!
Hello there. Love your channel and the fact that I'm learning something new. Always entertaining. And you always put a smile on my face when I see you without the hat. With it you look like everyone's favourite jolly uncle, without it, a brutal biker. 😁
All the best to you and your family. 👍❤
An extremely interesting video. Dan has lots of patience but preserving to the end. Thks for this.
Thanks for watching
Hey Dan! Evan's a Tuber now, so that's a guest spot!
I think the kid deserves a Featuring and his link in the description!
Great work as always.
wow that was cool fam. GOLD SQUAD OUT!!!
Really interesting video. What a beautiful yard! Hope all are well. Stay safe and healthy!
Watching reruns. Many years has passed and the kid has grown.
I've seen precious metals cast into graphite ingot moulds with little to no flux but with a flame playing onto the mould and then the top of the ingot, the heat seems to facilitate a nice smooth pour and a well formed ingot.
second video i watched of yours and very educating plus really fun.
Hey Dan,
I have my first shot at panning in Washington , CA. Its an old old mining town. Anywho I found my first tiny picker about 10 flakes and a tiny rock that appears to have gold stuck to it or running through it. It was awesome. I credit my find to you and your awesome videos. Thanks for all the tips. They all thought I was a pro, I said "no this is my first time, I just watched a lot of Dan hurds videos on youtube" hope it brings you a subscription or two. Thanks again!!!
Man big stack makes this look easy.
BigStackD is amazing and he doesn't even have to speak. those nordic gold videos are my favorite
These smelting videos you make sure are enjoyable to me.
07:55 I love the little chorus and what's being said!
Do any refining texts or experts have ideas of what makes gold brittle when it's usually ductile. I would try dissolving it in aqua regia and precipitating the gold and remelting it to a bar. (see Sreetips channel)
I was just about to suggest chemical refining and the Sreetips has great videos for that.
+1 for sreetips - though you want to be really careful when you get into the chemical refining. sreetips uses a fume hood, wears protective gear and has years of experience doing this. I would also suggest mbmmllc for a lot of info on smelting and cupelling.
You beat me to it. This was my thoughts exactly. Go to solution and precipitate out the pure gold. Only way at this point. Also Dan could learn a little about casting gold in graphite molds. No glass needed. Sreetips uses no real flux for casting just some borax to keep the paper ashes down while melting the gold out of the filter paper. That silica likely ruined the mold. Casting in the old iron or steel molds may be different but graphite has no need of such.
I was just thinking the same thing, I've been a jeweler and bullion caster for a long time and have done it like shown in the video. Lately I use very little flux and create my own molds using kinetic sand which works great for unique designs while retaining some of the nice pour lines. Whenever I use a lot of flux I lose control of the pour and then the cast is never even.
Hey Dan watch some of Sreetips videos on gold refining and when he pours his beads and bars
I just wanted to say the same thing. I absolutely agree with you on that. Steetips is the best our ther. It should also help with the copper issue. I think its maybe silver mixes with led on top of the beet.
Great Video!!! Always learning from your videos!!!
Awesome! Thank you!
Great video Dan smelting is an art form all on it's own. Interesting to say the least . Great channel
Thanks for the interesting video. That's some piece of gold. I remember the video and what it looked like when you got it! A lot different now!
All your clips are cool.alot of knowledge
Really like your videos on smelting. I find that process very interesting.
Thank you very much!
Glad to see another vlog.. Love your channel
Thanks!
@@Danhurd you're more then welcome !!
I have been waiting for more of these videos from you. Lol. Love these vids
A lag bolt to scrape and break up the flux... Proper tool for the job and all that...! 😉👍👍
Congrats on your find !
Third time's a charm
👍👍round things roll who knew 😂😂😂 great vid. Bud love the smelting vids
Looks like your son is picking up a lot of useful, old-school techniques and information. Someday he will follow in your footsteps and keep the art alive...
Great Video Dan. I like the smelting vids. Peace.
I’m actual learning stuff out of school. Thanks!
Dan buddy i could tell you were a fricken teacher from the beginning trying to use less scientific terms and easy to understand explanations love it .. would love to talk shop about fluxing sluicing and smelting
Your channel is good vibes man. Keep it going :)
Thanks Dan ...Love seeing you just " playing around " you can learn a lot just playing around..........P.S....Hope your feeling a lot better an that dad was ok with his injured wrist
Need to make square copper bb's Lol. Smelting is so interesting and that is a nice gold bar. Well done Dan.
Thanks 👍
nice looking gold bar, i hope my first bar looks that good.
Nice job with that .thank you for sharing
I always enjoy your videos and this was no exception. Too bad about the little copper ball.
Hope your dad is ok! Ouch!
Great Video Dan.
Nearly pure gold with just a touch of sulfides cleans up really nicely with aqua regia followed by metabisulfite precipitation.
I did that with some small bits of highly impure stuff I found.
Have some other metals and strange compounds that settled out of the leftover stuff. One metal fell out of the hot acid almost at once as it cooled even before the precip, so I think that must be platinum group.
Bummer to drop the copper. Neat bar of metal. Nice lookin bar of GOLD.
Hi dan awesome thank you for sharing hope ur dad is ok hope your doing better to be safe
Another great video dan.
Thanks for the fun and educational content as always.
Thanks for watching!
I'm definitely going to go watch the smelting with you and ure pops.
love ur videos dan very informational
Cool video Dan. When you said you were going to use flour for carbon the only thing that popped in my head was copper biscuits. I guess I was thinking about the bread my wife baked for dinner
Very cool process 😎
Can someone explain the silica and how it keeps the crucible from deteriorating?
Yay! more content!
Can you smell what Dan is cooking..... LOL 👍🏻
Thanks!
love these video's seeing the gold melt etc!! hope you're dad is ok now and even looks more like you're dad now than you do dan lol but great video x
Practice makes perfection...always thought casting gold or silver was cool ....thanks for sharing
I want more for this :) it’s therapeutic
Another great one!
What a nice chunk of gold
It really feels substantial too!
Really nice garden
Thanks - that's Dayna's thing
Love learning all this stuff!!
Awesome
Lol click Pic is hysterical
It looks like a gold suppository 🤣
always a great vid Dan, Cheers from Onterrible
I think you should test the gold with XRF. It may have arsenic in it which makes for a brittle alloy. It was problem the London mint had with gold from Australia in the mid 19th century
Have you yryed the potato smelting. Have a tattie borax and blow torch
Glad to see your Dad back in action. MBMMLLC.com is a great place to learn about refining gold. Great young man there. They sell mining machines for little small operations to large plants. You might find what you need for hard rock mining Dan. It's Mount Baker Mining Machinery LLC. Great video. Watch Bigstacked in Australia for smelting brass,copper and aluminum. He's a pro at it now. Great video Dan👍
That was a very interesting and fascinating to watch. We're buying a travel trailer and taking to nature very soon. I'll start a TH-cam channel and document our journey. Thanks for the wonderful content. You are one of my favorite TH-camr's to watch.
Man you guys really make me jealous, maybe in 20nyears I will join you guys
This was a very interesting video. I have some raw pieces of copper I found metal detecting in Upper Michigan. I would love to send you a couple of pieces that you can smelt down or do what you want with.
Dan hurd you need more subscriptions
Very cool...im learning alot...thanks.
Hey,question? I understand there is a special light for hunting gems at night,like uv or black light. Can you explain? Thanks Dale.keep up the great videos.
If you were really concerned about the fumes (even the limited exposure you'd get from being outside) couldn't you build a fume hood onto the bench to put the furnace into? And a scrubber onto the exhaust to capture the SO2?
Hope Dad's wrist is in recovery mode! Happy Independence Day!
That's a very short video buddy I'm used to your longer videos. But good video. Keep up the good work
Nice backyard!
Thanks!
Wow
Can’t imagine how much one of those bars you see in movies is worth
Nice vid Dan. I’ve done some copper and bronze casting and the flux is mostly/partly about keeping the oxygen out. I guess it also takes out other impurities. Gold being almost inert I’m not sure it needs as much flux, especially in the final pour. It seems to interrupt the flow of the gold too.
Great video editing.
Ok like the little mill. Where did you get it?
If you want a cleaner pour for the gold bar front use flux
Too much is just right😅 love it
Love your videos
Well HELLO AGAIN Dan!
Thanks for another very interesting video...thanks! I always learn so much from them!!
I may have overlooked it but...do you have s video on how you made that cool crusher?
I’ve had numerous occasions where that would have come in handy.
thanks again and please....KEEP THOSE VIDEOS COMING!!