Cleaning Nugget with CLR


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Got out detecting today for 2 hours, had to cut out early as I got a call from the wife. But while heading back to the car I received a good signal, sitting on top was a 2.2 gram nugget. The nugget was covered in caliche, and I let it soak in CLR for an hour. Its amazing how good this stuff works cleaning, and it starts to bubble right away eating at caliche, and calcium buildup.

Dave.

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Congrats again Dave. Nice nugget!! You seem to have it dialed in!! Taking My Mom and Stepdad up to gold basin for Mother's day tomorrow. Its what she wanted to do. lol Hopefull she'll bring some luck!

Chris

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I think your best results with CLR are when you really let it soak for at least 24 to 48 hours.

Then give it a rinse, and put it in a vial with 1/2 salt and 1/2 white vinegar and give it a shake.

Salt, or sodium chloride, combines with acetic acid from the vinegar to produce sodium acetate and hydrogen chloride. Hydrogen chloride is a strong acid and the combination of it and sodium acetate rapidly cleans the surface metal.

It's not a striking difference but it does seem to brighten the gold up a little.

Give the nugget a good rinse and be content with the way it looks. It's a natural nugget, all of the inclusions and little rust stains are part of the unique nature of the nugget. You can get so carried away with cleaning the nugget that the end result is a perfectly cleaned gold nugget which can some times look as if it has been manufactured.

Doc

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Hey Dave,

Nice looking nugget. Everyone has their own method on how they want to clean gold. CLR works pretty good on caliche and some minor iron staining/rust. On real butt ugly nuggets, an ultrasonic cleaner with the Gold Magic solution works wonders.

On normally nuggets I just use water, dish soap and an old toothbrush. This cleans up the nugget pretty good and keeps the nature gold luster.

Hope this helps,

Rob Allison

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Yo Doc & All .. I have a very unusual flaky nugget I found that was just over an ounce but fragile and bits keep falling off ... Last time I weighed it it wa about .80 0zt ... It's kind of ugly and I think I'll try the salt and vinigar approach .... Here's before ... I'll post after later ... Cheers, Unc

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Yo Doc & All .. I have a very unusual flaky nugget I found that was just over an ounce but fragile and bits keep falling off ... Last time I weighed it it was about .80 0zt ... It's kind of ugly and I think I'll try the salt and vinigar approach .... Here's before ... I'll post after later ... Cheers, Unc

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