First Gold Pour.... and more!

[chickenminer]

I have been wanting to pour my own bars for awhile now to get away from the melt loss issue when sending
placer gold to the smelter. So this winter I bought a couple of furnaces, one small that will hold a #2 crucible and
a larger one that will hold a #4.
With this incredible 50 degree March weather we have been having I decided to break out the furnace and take a shot at my first pour.

I had already gone through the process of removing the moisture from my new furnace and crucible. Everything was ready.
So I started the furnace and placed the crucible inside to preheat. Since this was my first pour I limited it to a small batch of pretty clean placer gold.
Removed my preheated #2 crucible from the furnace, dumped in 11.5 ounces of placer gold, added some borax
and placed it back in the furnace.

The little Devil Forge furnace worked like a charm. In 15 minutes I had liquid gold ready to pour!



Getting hot !


Gold and flux poured into 20 oz graphite mold ..


Ingot popped right out of the mold ..


Ingot with flux removed and cleanup up ...


I started out with 11.5 ounces and after it was all cleaned up I ended with a 10.4 ounce gold ingot.
Learned a lot with this first pour. I'm ready to try a 25 oz bar next !

[Joe S (AK)]

Show Off!

Geez Dick - that's impressive!

Certainly easier to ship a Dore' Bar than loose placer and certainly no 'shrinkage' along the way to the buyer.

Joe

[waveaction]

Thanks for the Pictures Dick. Looks like you have steady hands, but then again that 20 oz Graphite Mode is a lot bigger than my 1 oz Graphite Mode (smile).

[Jim_Alaska]

Great job for a first time try Dick. Thanks for posting all the pics to show what can be done using simple methods.
Also thanks for learning how to post multiple pictures, it's a bit confusing at first, but really adds to the overall picture when done correctly.

[chickenminer]

Jim... I gave up on the multiple pictures using the attachment method. Even with your suggestion I could not get more than one pic to show up.
So I just hosted the photos elsewhere.

[chickenminer]

Joe... Ya it's pretty cool stuff! Much easier to handle and none of that questionable melt loss stuff from
the smelter anymore.

Kurt ... Oh man I would have trouble trying to hit a little one ounce mold !! This 20 oz mold was
enough of a challenge.
One of the things I learned is I need to preheat the graphite mold much hotter to get a more uniform
looking bar.

[Jim_Alaska]

Sorry about that Dick, I thought you had it down pretty good.

[Joe S (AK)]

A Metric ton of information - but -

3 items up from the bottom - How Gold Bars are Made

https://goldbarsworldwide.com/about-gold-bars/

[chickenminer]

Wow... lots of neat stuff on that site. Thanks for the web address Joe !

[easy goer]

By tilting the “holding” crucible, a relatively small amount of gold, between 450 oz and 2,000 oz, is then poured into a pre-heated ʻtransferʼ crucible

By the Grace of God I would love to find a "relatively small amount of gold, between 450oz and 2000 oz". I would call that a pretty good weekend! Hell, okay a pretty good week!!

Easy goer