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Experience with Shor platinum refining system

Jewelry Discussion
#1

Does anyone have first hand experience with the Simplicity Gold &
Platinum Refining System from Shor International? Recently I ran
across this while searching the internet on refining.

http://www.shorinternational.com/refining.htm

This does seem a little too neat and tidy. (In the past I’ve refined
small amounts of gold using the aqua regia method. Since I can’t
endorse that process I’m always interested if viable alternatives
exist.) I’m well aware that using a professional refiner is the best
in the long run, but just curious about this one.

Thanks,

J Collier
Small Scale Metalsmith
http://jlcollier.com

#2

Hello,

I have tried it and it really works. I have also made some
observations:

  • You must work only in a well ventilated area. The fumes won’t kill
    you but you will have problems breathing when you are at the
    precipitation phase.

  • The process depends very much of the gold alloy composition. I
    live in Europe and the gold here tipically is made with more than 20%
    silver and you need to alloy it down, making it time and power
    consuming.

  • You will not obtain tipically 99.95 gold purity from the first
    pass but a decent 22 k gold alloy. For 24 k you will need another
    pass.

  • Losses are in range of 5-10% from the high purity gold the first
    time you use the device. Afterwards if you work really carefully and
    do not spill the solutions you can reach the percentage of 2-3%
    losses.

I also can tell you another thing: You certainly would have fun! I
have felt like a real alchemist operating it. There are no lights to
lid, switches to turn, only good old work, observation and action but
it will deliver some joy in knowing that you made that pure gold from
scrap with your own hands.

Greetings!

Adrian
Small Scale Jewelry Repairing
Adcoravi Gold S.R.L
Romania

#3 
Does anyone have first hand experience with the Simplicity Gold &
Platinum Refining System from Shor International? Recently I ran
across this while searching the internet on refining.

Yes I owned one, they work. I sold mine due to it not handling
palladium white gold properly. For yellow gold and red gold it works
great. However the cost of chemicals and time makes it not really
all that cost effective though.

Jim

James Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts

#4

Jim,

The $100 refining fee we pay to Precious Metals West is well worth
it. We collect everything, bench drawer remains, machine residue,
floor sweepings, spent sandpaper, saw blades, filings, mystery metals
from the centrifuge, bottoms of the pickle bowl, annealing bowl, you
name it, we keep it in a box, and when that overflows, off to Dan
Ballard it goes. The school gets pure metals back in return, a fair
recovery. We separate nothing. The refining fee comes out of the
return, pretty nice, costs us nothing out of pocket, and we have new
metals for the next semester. Sweet.

Hugs,
Terrie