A friend has given me some of their white gold pieces to mash together into a new piece. They have a lot more faith in me than i do, but i see it as a fun challenge.
To note, they aren’t concerned with karat, just aesthetics and fun. Too sweet of them.
Anyways, what i was wondering is if i were to re-melt some components, that still have a fair amount of solder on them, would fluxing the melt with charcoal/sal ammoniac actually work to clean out some of the extra zinc or contaminants? Or am i more likely to just destroy the workability of the gold?
A second question if you will!
I have some scrap 14-18k yellow gold as well; is it possible to alloy with “white gold alloy”, enough to get it White before reaching 8k?
I guess i’m asking, how much whitening power does white gold casting alloy have? Does it have to start with 24k?
I don’t know the answer to your first question about melting white gold with charcoal/sal ammoniac to clean out zinc. I do know that the primary problem with melting gold or silver with solder in it, is that it often creates porosity. That means a potentially pitted surface. I’ve found that customers who want something made out of their scrap gold don’t always care about porosity. They just want something made with their gold.
If I were given this project, I’d either cut out the areas with solder or melt it with the solder and live with the porosity. Either way, I’d tell the customer their options and let them decide what path to take.
Are you trying to make 8 kt white gold? Or was that a typo? There’s not going to be much gold in 8 kt. white. It’s mainly going to be alloy.
Whenever I am asked to recycle old gold or silver into a new piece, I always tell the person asking that I will try with the understanding that what you are asking me to do might fail. This is rather open ended but it covers all possible outcomes. I try to cut out what solder I can find and then proceed. There are ways to deal with porosity if there isn’t a lot of it. I am not sure about 8K white gold. I think that 9K is the least you can have and call it gold. I find 14K white so hard to work with that I won’t, I can’t imagine 8 or 9K. Good luck…Rob
My memory plays unkind tricks on me these days but I think in the U.S. the lowest grade that could be called gold used to be 10K. I think 9K is the lowest grade that can be called gold in the U.K.
A few years ago the FTC allowed any karat stamping that is accurate, so 1K gold is legal in the U.S. and stamping things 8K would be allowed.
The best thing to do is check with the FTC website or wherever else applies in one’s country to be sure.
Neil…Thanks for the correction. Maybe 10K is, or was, the lowest. I stopped working in gold, other than for a customer who knew and agreed to what they were paying, since the early 2000s. Back then I made engraved 2X5 14K yellow bracelets for all of my kids, my wife and my sister in law for Christmas. These bracelets are now worth close to $1,000 each. I recently recycled my wife’s and son’s bracelets into earrings and a couple of chain bracelets. I love working in gold, but rarely get the chance anymore. Thanks…Rob
We did have this conversation, that failure is a distinct possibility, and as you noted, they dont mind. They said that worst case, if nothing works, return in pieces.
I did chop off as much of the soldered bits i could, it just leaves very little to work with easily; melting it just produces a small ball. Too little to cast even into a wire ingot.
The last option i have is doing a small recovery. Aqua regia, then purify, then re-alloy. Fear losing too much. Would have extra scrap to throw in, but still, ive only done that once before and gold is pricy to fail with!
Appreciate the help!
If its “just” prosity then yeah, probably workable, and as you say, they’re really open about issues like porosity. Even complete failure, said its ok to return in pieces or a melted ball if nothing works.
I did cut as much of the soldered bits off i could, the issue is whats left just balls up when melted and would be a pain to stretch out lol.
As for the karats, i think maybe i asked about it backwards:
Lets say you have 14k and/or 18k yellow gold scrap, and you have white gold casting alloy.
If you melted them together, could you get "white"gold, before the karats go lower than… say 10k. Is the whiting alloy capable of providing enough “whitening” if you start with 14-18k gold; or do you have to start with 24?
I spoke with a buddy who owns a custom jewelry store and often works with customer’s gold. He verified what I thought was probably true. He said that if you add white gold alloy to 14 kt yellow to make 10 kt white, the metal will be pale, but not white. He said that 18 kt yellow to 10 kt white will be whiter than 14 yellow to 10 white, but not as white as you would have starting with 24 kt yellow.