cleaning gold


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I had a small one like that but later went and got a GemOro Heated ultrasonic. and it was well worth the money. Also get your self some Green Magic for the solution..

I got my machine off e-bay at a decent pricethere are some small pint models available or even quart models, but get a heated unit with time for best results

Allen

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Thanks for the information. I checked on ebay and most of the heated units sell in the $300 US range. A little out of my price range. I think I'll try to make do without the heat.

Ray

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Hello Ray,

I used one of those plastic cleaner for a bit, but realized they don't clean like the GemOro Ultrasonic ones do. I ended up purchasing a GemOro 6x6x6 with heat, but you can get them without. You really don't need the heat, as a good Ultrasonic cleaner will heat up without the heater function.

The "Magic Green" Solution is great for gold and silver! :D

Take care,

Rob Allison

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Are you sure you want to clean your gold? To me, cleaned nuggets don't look right, you lose some of the individuallity of the piece.

Does it hurt the value to clean a nugget? It certainly does with old coins, and a cleaned old coin doesn't look right either.

It's your gold, just thought I'd ask.

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Hello Alienbogey,

Cleaning nuggets does not harm them, unless you use the wrong chemicals. I have seen people destroy beautiful gold/quartz specimens with too much HF acid.

As far as raw, solid gold nuggets, it is pretty hard to harm them. Gold is a noble metal, and really only a few acids combined can dissolve or hurt it.

If nuggets are cleaned properly, then they usually turn out beautiful. The GemOro Ultrasonic cleaners will not harm the gold; it is the solution (Magic Green) that can burn the gold.

Magic Green is industrial type gold/silver cleaner, and I actually have burned some gold (darkened it) by using too much cleaner. Very little Magic Green is needed to clean the gold.

Hope this helps a bit,

Rob Allison

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Thanks everyone for your input. There are a few different metal cleaners that are in my price range and I guess I'll look at each nugget first to decide if I should be cleaning it or not.

Ray

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Rob,

Thanks for the info but that's not really what I meant......

To me, a cleaned nugget looks unnatural, kind of artificial. I like them best the way they look right out of the ground with the local color unaffected.

I was in a gold shop in Ketchikan Alaska and every nugget looked exactly the same (other than shape) - perfect, shiny yellow gold. These were nuggets from all kinds of different districts in Alaska. Didn't look right all.

I asked the owner about it and he agreed that they looked somewhat artifical that way, but said that the tourists won't buy them unless they look like newly minted gold coins.

They say an expert can tell where a nugget came from by looking at it. . Part of that comes from the natural "patina" the nugget acquires from eons of laying in the stream or ground. I'd never destroy that patina by cleaning it - to me it's as much part of the natural nugget as it's shape.

Just my opinion - again, do with your own gold as you please.

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Guest John B.

Hi Guys

The combo ultra sonic and green wonder cleaner are the cats ass in cleaning nuggets . They come out real nice and I know of no other way to clean them as nice . Trust me I've ruined my share of nuggets and specimens !! What will really ruin the patina on a nugget is just handling it or polishing it by leaving it in your pocket . All fresh dug desert nuggets have a fine dull finish on them from the actions of bieng set in soil . I have many nuggets I've lugged around to show off that are now quite polished and no longer look like the real fresh dug thing . As far as a heater in an ultra sonic is concerned you really don't need it . You can always start with warm or hot water but if not it will get real warm real quick just from the ultra sonic action . Sooo if your like me and don't change the water too often just let it run awhile before putting in your nugget any dirt from the water will easily rise off . Also so you don't end up with polished spots on the nugget from riding the bottom of the ultra sonics tank . You can purchase the small nylon screens to place your nugget in to keep it suspended in the tank while cleaning !! Another point while on this subject of preserving a nice find . I have a couple of nuggets that were trashed by people who didn't value them as I do . One particular nugget I think it was my 3rd nugget found soo many years ago . I had taken it to my moving and storage company's office and was showing it off to my employees . I was soooooo proud of it and was thinking about thier rarity since it was only my 3rd find I was still high from the moment . I gently handed it to one of them and couldn't believe my eyes when he poped it in his mouth and bit it !! I almost beat the crap outa the poor stupid bastard . There was my pride and joy and my most recent find with subtle teeth marks on it . Well I ended up canning him for some other brilliant business related things he did . I also have a couple nuggets with flat spots on them . A couple years ago Sweetpea and I were making the rounds at the Gem and Mineral show in Tucson and we visited our Russian comrads at the Ramada Inn . Vladamire was showing off some nuggets he beeped in Russia and handed Sweetpea his largest nugget from a recent expedition (a little over an ounce) . Well she promptley dropped it on the concrete porch where they had set up for the show . Here's this gorgeous nugget with a big flat spot on the end of it !! Well She felt horrible and so did I !! I have a few in my collection from the same thing . Smaller nuggets seem to handle dropping much better than lunkers sooooooo . If you let folks handle your gold coach them first on nugget handling edicacy !! I was hoping some day that ol Robbie would show me his stash of nuggets soooo I could leave a few marks of my own on em !! :lol::lol: Since he's had his chance with some of mine !! :roll:

Happy Huntin John B.

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is straight ammonia

and a rock tumbler

total cost, less tnhan 30.00!!

forget the rock tumbler and use a tupperware container and shake the beejeezus out of it less than 3.00!!

you can most of the original lustre back to a nugget by tumbling it in sand

i clean heaps and gobs of nuggets, so im not saying any of this without experience

go to my site, and look at my auctions

www.goldbay.com

and you will see how clean they are!!!

dave

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Hello Jerry,

You will truly love that unit have you clean some gold. If you have a really nasty stained gold, or ugly looking specimens, let the GemOro have at them! :Ehhh

Short story about the GemOro -

Several years ago my friend found an ugly 2-ounce specimen from the Bradshaw range. The piece had a healthy amount of gold, but the quartz was really brownish, and a bit ugly! :Sick

I convinced my friend I had the perfect solution, my new GemOro unit. :D I took the piece home, hoping to return it as a nice museum looking piece. :wink: I arrived home, set up the GemOro with some Green Magic Solution and placed specimen within the tank. About 15 minutes later, the water turned a dark brownish looking color. As I reached down to pick of the submerged specimen, I realized the specimen had tons of cracks in the quartz. I was hoping the piece was not going to fall apart, as I promised my friend this GemOro was going to do wonders. Well long story short, the quartz had tons of stress cracks, and you could not see them before as they were full of dirt particles. The GemOro brought all the details of the specimen out, and several of those hairline cracks were small veinlets of gold! :Scared

Did I forget to say the specimen was now in three pieces rather than one? How the hell was I going to explain this one to my friend. His first specimen and I destroyed it! Haha... Just kidding, the piece really turned out well, and my friend was more than impressed.

Jerry, hope the GemOro works out well for you.

Rob Allison

Rob's Detector Sales

www.nuggethunting.com

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Rob and John B turned me on to the Gem Oro with heat and Magic Green.

I had used eveything! Nitirc Acid, salt and vinegar, Hfl acid, Muriatic acid, CLR, WINK, you name it! I even made up my own concoction, Muriatic acid with Nitric! Do you know what happened? I dissolved 4 nuggets! I didn't realize the Muriatic acid is actually a form of Hydrochloric acid. Do you know what you get when you mix Hydrochloric with Nitric? Aqua Regia (sp?) !!! One of the few solutions that will melt gold ! WHOOPS !

The Gem Oro with heat, professional ultrasonic, with Magic Green accomplishes a beautfiul balance of what you want to achieve when cleaning gold.

It knocks out the hard to get at iron staining. Cleans up the rust stained quartz without destroying it. Cleans the dirt off of the nugget but leaves the patina of the nugget intact.

BCOT!

DOC

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  • 2 years later...

Rob, do you sell these cleaners? I see them on ebay but wondering if you have them too. Would this process clean stained Quartz like the rock attached to the Moores Creek nuggets? I've tried salt water, soapy water and even brushing but hesitate to try some of the chemical methods. Don't have a lot of nuggets to spare so not willing to experiment too much...

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Hello Gaine,

I don't sell the chemical cleaners or the Ultra Sonic cleaners. I purchased the Magic Green Cleaner and Ultra Sonic Machine from some website off the net, can't remember which one though. I have cleaned some specimens up really nice with the combination, but others don't seem to clean very well. The dirty quartz ones are hard to clean up.

Hope this helps a bit,

Rob Allison

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I like them moderately cleaned. I don't like the shininess that some abrasive methods can yield, since it can make the nugget look manmade, or previously melted. Cleaning with soap and water, then a dip in muriatic acid would be my preference. If the nugget turns out too bright is looks wierd to me, like the nugget was bought in a store or produced in a lab or something.

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I have cleaned a lot of oz's of gold and have never used any kind of cleaning equip..

I have used acid a time or two to knock off heavy deposits of iron oxide.

The only thing that I use is D&K Gold Nugget Cleaner or GFX Gold Nugget Cleaner.

It has always made the gold come out real clean and shiny but not with a polished effect

You can use 1-2-3-4-5oz. vials or any size container you want.

You want to remember that the larger sized gold and the glass vials do not get along well togather because this method takes some hand shaking.

I like to use a 3 or 4 oz. vial for the very small nuggets and a 2oz. for fines [flakes], I load the vial 1/2 to 3/4 full gold and then fill it with the cleaner, put the cap on and start shaking.

Lay the vial in the palm of your hand, put the thumb on the cap, curl the little finger up so that the bottom of the vial sits on your little finger, curl the other three fingers aroung the thing and shake away. If you don't sit it on your little finger, most likly the weight of the gold along with the shaking will pop the bottom out of the vial. Don't ask me how I know that!!

I usually do it while watching TV or something and I shake it for 15 or 20 min.. The cleaner will turn light tan to dirty brown. I pour it off into another container as it can be reused. Flush the gold with clear water a couple times, dry it and its clean and shiny.

Its about a 30 min. process, depends how fast you shake and how dirty the gold is.

Now I know that someone is going to want to pour some of this stuff in a bowl, drop that big ol' nugget in and start to scrub away with a tooth brush or something. If you work with this stuff outside of capped containers, use caution and a whole lot of common sense. Wear a good grade rubber glove and check often to make sure they have not developed a hole so that your fingers are now soaking in the stuff.

Don't try the white surgical ones as they will tear or develope holes.

You won't notice anything for a half-hour or so, then there will be a light stinging around the finger nails and an hour or so later there will be a real burning sensation, at this point you will be flushing with water, scrubbing under and around the nails with soap and brush, putting on the baking soda, as well as anything else that you think will relieve the pain, but the damage is done.

By the next day your hand will look like a snake bite. It will be so big that you can not close it and so tight that the fingers are starting to turn purple. The nails will turn yellow at least half way back, or more, and its not stain. The cleaner has leached under the nails. In three or four days the nails will turn loose everywhere that they are yellow and you will be able to press them and watch the puss run out.

Before all this takes place it would be a good idea to get to a doctor and get a shot to reduce the swelling so that the blood-flow can continue, and just maybe your hand won't fall off.

No, I'm not a doctor, so don't ask me how I know all this. I just do. :rolleyes:;)

Bob T.

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Yeehaw! I got me one of them new fangle vibrating nugget cleaners. I looked on ebay like like someone suggested and found that most were not willing to ship beyond the lower 48. After looking through several pages of listings, I found one that would so I bid (won). It should be here next week I guess... About that Gem Oro and Green Magic solution, is that like Simple Green? Or some special solution for ultrasonic cleaners?

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