i am new to jewelry industry. Can someone please explain to me how
to melt gold (the process). I have seen people adding a white powder
when the gold is in molten state. What is it? How often do we need
to add that? Does the crucible need to be oiled before I start
melting. Does the iron ingot also need to be oiled?? If yes, why so?
Thanks
Rahul
Hello, the white stuff you see people adding to their crucibles is
probably borax. It is used to create a molten glass like coating
over the gold while it is in a liquid state. This is to help prevent
oxidation of the copper and silver in the alloy. You don’t need a
lot. Just a thin coating will do. No don’t oil a crucible, when you
are using a new crucible heat it up first and add a bit of the borax
and melt that onto the surface of the inside where the gold will be.
What kind of casting are you doing? Are you doing gravity pours into
metal ingot molds? That is the only time I know of where people
sometimes oil the mold. If this is what you are wanting to do, then
use something like cooking oil. NEVER use an oil that has Teflon in
it, Such as WD-40. It is highly toxic when it is overheated. It will
give you the Teflon flu. You will get very very ill for a short
time. You will develop very bad flu like symptoms, fever, chills,
head ache, body pain. etc. It will kill birds if they are exposed to
burning Teflon. Even an overheated skillet can cause birds to die. I
don’t use Teflon now for anything in our house. A co-worker treated
a flask with WED-40 and we all became very ill. then there was a
program on TV about Teflon and overheating.
Good luck Dennis