New Zealand Gold Fossicking Forums

im looking for some good safe advice to burn off some mercury which is contaminating some of my coro gold. I have got a fume mask, leather gloves, a divers weight mould and a blow torch. I guess i will wait for a windy day and stay up wind.

any advice will be well recieved

thanks
starflash

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Hi Starflash,

TAKE GAVIN`S ADVICE as the safest way for the hobbyist to remove mercury from the amalgamated gold bits.
You can do it this way also by placing your gold on (say) a shovel or steel plate and covering the gold with ½ a potato, then just heat the plate up some way,(like) sticking the shovel in the embers of a fire. (Use your noggin, and you’ll find a way that suits you.)

When you`ve finished this operation, just "Crush" the potato up "UNDER WATER" to recover the Mercury for safe disposal,or,for future use.

If you just drive off the Mercury in the open air, “You” are polluting the surrounding environment, as the minute particles in the vapors will re-condense (Sublime) again as soon as their temperature drops, and that may just be on something that you are liable to shove in your mouth, (like) fruit etc.

This will possibly not cause you a problem! But if you make a habit of doing this, then remember that the effects of mercury inhalation etc, are cumulative, meaning that they add-up within your body causing problems.

I think that “EAGLE” has done this operation often with his “Fines” so just send him a PM and ask his method.

Cheers---Colin.

P.S. I would have thought, that you would have known this already??????

Hi again Starflash.
You’re probably right about the oxidized lead.
The remains of lead shot? There’s a lot of it in all the creeks.(just to confound us!)

Years ago I found a single hand sized lump of rock in the “Pururi” area.
This rock weighed 11kgs! It was dark grey, and looked like fish eggs all compressed together, and it had a sort of golden sheen on it when it was wet.
(I thought I was “Made“.)
On having a bit of it assayed, it turned out to be a rare form of iron pyrites, so it was relegated to the scrap heap outside.
After about 10 years of weathering it started to breakdown to a leaden grayish powder that looked just like oxidized lead.
I always thought afterwards that this rock was some form of telluride,

Cheers---Colin.

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hey ginger

the grey stuff left behind in your photo is that lead?

i was never very good at physics or chemistry, meagan who sat next to me got all my attention!

Lol did it pay off!!...gess not else you would no what that grey stuff is haha....im no good at chemistry eather i believe most of that grey stuff is chalk which is rubbed on the inside of the retort to stop the gold from sticking to the inside but could be someother stuff as well when it was melted i lost 3 grams .

Hey Starflash I was shown some of that Coromandel gold the other day,Not the prettiest looking gold I've seen before.I now understand why you Coromandel boys always come down "South" here.
Maybe you should just turn your pieces in your speci jar into fishing sinkers Lol.

Go hard
Eagle

hi eagle

we know how gealous you southern boys get of us northerners
he is a photo of my latest coromandel finds

Gooday Starflash.

Guess the fish would have a heart attack seeing that thing hurtling down through the water?

Cheers---Colin.