Author Topic: Gold Chloride or Gold Bullion?  (Read 6948 times)

Offline cfnisbet

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Re: Gold Chloride or Gold Bullion?
« Reply #30 on: July 24, 2016, 04:05:13 PM »
1 The shape is fairly irrelevant, just immerse a tiny bit in the DW. The idea is that a flat strip is easy to make and you would find it difficult to get a piece of pure Gold any cheaper. This is my chosen method, for that reason. You could roll out a small coin if you prefer. If, for some reason, you really want a wire shape, then it would be fairly simple to drill a hole in a piece of hardwood and pour molten gold into the hole, thus giving you a short rod. I can't see the point of going to that effort. A strip is quick and easy to make. Once it is thin enough, you could even use tin snips to cut off a narrower strip,  say about 3mm wide.

2 You are not correct about having to buy the Cookson Gold wire in a full reel. You can buy any length of the wire, 5 or 10 cm,  for example. The reel size is for bulk buyers as it encourages a buyer to take a whole reel if their chosen amount is close to a complete reel. That way, shipping is easier for the company, as they just drop a reel into the packaging and don't have to cut it. The last time I bought from them, I bought 15 cm.

tseax

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Re: Gold Chloride or Gold Bullion?
« Reply #31 on: July 24, 2016, 04:44:09 PM »
1 The shape is fairly irrelevant...
Shape no but cross sectional area is: http://www.cgcsforum.org/index.php?topic=3377.msg28387#msg28387
Quote
2 You are not correct about having to buy the Cookson Gold wire in a full reel. You can buy any length of the wire, 5 or 10 cm,  for example.
Well that's good news. I'll give them a closer look and likely make a purchase from them soon.

Thanks!

Offline cfnisbet

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Re: Gold Chloride or Gold Bullion?
« Reply #32 on: July 24, 2016, 05:07:14 PM »
I fail to see anything on the link which would imply that the end of a strip just touching the water surface, would in some way be a bad idea.

tseax

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Re: Gold Chloride or Gold Bullion?
« Reply #33 on: July 24, 2016, 10:39:55 PM »
I fail to see anything on the link which would imply that the end of a strip just touching the water surface, would in some way be a bad idea.
I can help with that. The way I make colloidal gold is in a 3-liter beaker at ~90-degrees C. I check the process every 20-30 minutes after which time the water level usually drops 1/2" or so. A barely submerged strip-end would no longer be submerged. My current method uses a strip electrode like the one you describe, however I submerge the gold strip (1/2" x 2") about 1/2" below the surface of the water. At intervals I just top off the water level to keep it fully submerged. I didn't realize colloidal gold quality could be negatively affected by electrode surface area, and, it was an electrode left over from my Biophysica CS1-12 machine.

The idea of using wire makes sense to me (if gold chloride is too difficult to acquire). I plan to try submerging a glass tube well below the surface of the water and passing gold wire through the tubing and out the end - only a bit out the end, say 1/2". That way I have no worries about an exposed anode (from evaporation) and I keep the anode surface area minimal as per Kephra's advice. The tubing just acts as insulation and support for the wire in the strong stirrer current of the beaker.

Offline kephra

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Re: Gold Chloride or Gold Bullion?
« Reply #34 on: July 25, 2016, 02:13:17 PM »
tseax:  Perhaps you could take your gold bullion, and coat it with an insulating material like fingernail polish or some other material that is impervious to hot water.  Then leave a small area at the bottom uncoated.  As the electrode wore, you could scrape off a little more insulator from the bottom. 

The coating would have to be something that could later be dissolved with some kind of solvent. 
There is the unknown and the unknowable.  It's a wise man who knows the difference.

tseax

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Re: Gold Chloride or Gold Bullion?
« Reply #35 on: July 25, 2016, 10:38:21 PM »
Sounds like a good idea K. My original Biophysica electrode had something like that - "food grade" epoxy - at the weld point, presumably to prevent electrolysis of whatever weld material may NOT have been gold. The epoxy peeled off in the hot water though. I'll hold that idea for a future purchase now that I've (just, 3-minutes ago) bought 5 M of 0.5mm gold wire from Cookson Gold in the UK (thanks for the tip cfnisbet!).

bcboy

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Re: Gold Chloride or Gold Bullion?
« Reply #36 on: June 11, 2020, 04:13:04 AM »
Or do what I do: buy gold wire from Cookson Gold, (they ship worldwide), or buy a small gold bar I use a ten gram 999 fine bar and roll it out to a flat strip.

The second method guarantees purity and best value for money.

Can you please share the method that you used to flatten your gold bars please? Thanks. :D

Offline cfnisbet

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Re: Gold Chloride or Gold Bullion?
« Reply #37 on: June 11, 2020, 08:31:01 AM »
Any jeweller should have a rolling mill. If not, then put it inside a piece of cardboard and hammer it flat. Gold is very malleable, to the point that a strip can be rolled out so thin that you can see through it.