Central West Super Speci-a work in progress

Amazing Gus, truly beautiful piece. cheers Pete.

That's an awesome looking nugget mate well done Gus!

Ren...

Thanks everyone.
A strange turn of events has unfolded during the processing.
I started off with a total weight of 1228 grams.
The total weight of gold recovered was 815 grams. The SG tests showed that it should have contained 820-840 MINIMUM.
The total weight of rock dollied was 296 grams.
So.....
815 + 296 = 1111.
it seems that 117 grams has dissapeared into thin air
I doubt that I would have lost that much through Quartz and ironstone being dissolved or the panning off process of the crushings,maybe 15-20 grams,so what happened to the other 100 grams?
Any ideas?

Don't worry Gus, I've got my best detective on the case.



1) How confidant are you that the scales you used were accurate? It was a large weight.
2) Has the missus been doing any extra shopping lately? Have you noticed any new expensive additions to her wardrobe?

Fantastic chunk of gold Gus,
Using HF acid or any other single acid you couldn't loose any gold, you will only lose Quartz, iron,silver,copper ect so as your first photo shows the specimen had iron mineralization and that would have been converted to an oxide solution or gas.
I know nitrous oxide gas is released with nitric and copper/Gold and comes off with a brown gas.
Cheers Mark

I had never heard of thermal shock treatment before now but I can see that it works a treat, even if it is a little more labour intensive. Well done Gus. Hope your next find is even better.

MS wrote:Fantastic chunk of gold Gus,
Using HF acid or any other single acid you couldn't loose any gold, you will only lose Quartz, iron,silver,copper ect so as your first photo shows the specimen had iron mineralization and that would have been converted to an oxide solution or gas.
I know nitrous oxide gas is released with nitric and copper/Gold and comes off with a brown gas.
Cheers Mark

Fair call Mark,
There just didnt seem to be 100 grms of Ironstone in the rock. The 2 pockets visable in the first pic were only shallow and wouldnt have come to much in weight.
The other thing I noticed was,even though I dollied the quartz to powder,the dishing water didnt turn that murky.

Just a tip for those of you who dolly up quartz speci`s. If you dont turn the rock into powder you will be loosing gramage. I re-seived the crushings,re-dollied and ended up panning off a fair amount of flour gold in the last 2 attempts.

PS Shiraz: The Scales used were calibrated and are accurate plus the good wifey hasnt bought any nice things for a while .....she is very trustworthy

Another way of losing gold when panning off the fines after the quartz has been dollied to a fine powder is forgetting to put a bit of detergent in, very fine gold will float on the water surface and get lost, this would only be a small amount and not the large amount you are talking about.
Also you can use of mercury to pick up the sub gold particles that are barely visible to the eye in the heavies.
Mark

oh my goodness
such a great piece you can not even see at the Museum in germany.
a really nice nugget, congratulations

WOW Gus she looks amazing mate great job , almost done catching up with all the posts

Gday Hoffs,
It did look amazing mate........until I smashed it with a big hammer and cut it into 3 bits. It is now at the refiners being made into a gold bar.
A real shame,but there are bills to pay and things to do.

Get out of here mate ya pulling my leg??

No leg pulling mate.
I just wish I had smashed it up and sent it to the refiners a few days after i found it.
Gold was $1755 Au then.
Hindsight is always 20/20.

Got to do what ya got to do mate that's life I guess, all the best with it mate & we'll need to head out & find another one @ some point?
Cheers Clinton,