Ultrasonic cleaning fluid?

Following the advice on here I purchased an ultrasonic cleaner and it has certainly helped all but the stubborn ingrained red dirt.

Is there a special cleaning solution I should be using in this?. I have used water and a dash of dish washing liquid to date

Thanks

Gday Bungarra you may have to soak the gold in Hydrocloric acid for a few days, then put back into the ultrasonic again, Hope this helps.

Cheers.

Mike.

Hi Mike

I did one batch of nuggets in the Diggers Hydrochloric acid and I reckon it only did an average job over the week they were in there and I believe they sort of looked a bit wishy washy afterwards. (I did neutralise all afterwards.)

All we are talking about getting rid off is the sticky red goldfields clay where it clings in the rough areas. The Ultrasonic cleaner did a better job than the acid but not as perfect as I had hoped.

Maybe I had better use the alibrite next instead of the hydrochloric acid and then the Ultrasonic

Thanks

Gday Bungarra yes try the alibrite it shouldn't hurt, see how you go and let us know how it turns out.

Cheers.

Mike.

G'Day
Alway's scrub the gold first with a stiff tooth brush and hot water whith dish washing liquid, Then make the call for acid or the ultrasonc cleaner,Hope this helps.
Big Fella

thanks

got to find some more first and will try that first.

I know this is going to sound stupid, however has anyone tried cleaning gold in a dishwasher? In the late 70's whilst living in Cue we used to be able to get hydrofluric acid from Selbys' in Perth, and that will attack anything except plastic and gold, and very deadly to use
cheers to all

Ultrasonic cleaners vary in power.......the small cheapies are around 200 watts........jewellers use ones around 700 watts....."horses for courses".

Jeez Hanson........ tossing a few pints of HF Acid is a 'dishwasher' adding a kilo or so of gold and putting it on the dirty wash cycle............. Wow!! the mid Boggles

I once had a small poly bottle with a screw lid with a few grams of gold sitting in HF inside it. Bottle was sitting in a bed of Alum in a closed box in a locked outside cabinet (I had kids).

Came home from work, open the cupboard and carefully removed the box, lifted the poly bottle and inspected - not ready yet and put it all away again.

Half an hour latter the first three fingers of the right hand started throbbing really badly. Washed in Sodium Glutonate solution and carefully inspected finger tips. A small wite spot surround by angry inflamation was seen at the end of each nail bed. Quick smart I slapped sodium glutonate gell all over the finders and headed for the hospital.

It was late afternoon with just a male nurse on duty (small country hospital) I explained the issue - HF Burn. He suggested a good wash and some painkillers and "Come back tomorrow if its a problem" I suggested , somewhat forcefully, that it would be a really good idea to get a Doctor in here right now and then phone the Poisons Centre and get the best info on treatment for such as burn.

Well the outcome was the Doc duly arrived, checked with the Poisions Centre, put a clouple of pain block jabs in the knuckle area. Then using a pair of slim needle point pliers he slid them up under the side of the nail and removed the nails by rolling ther pliers - like opening a can of sardines. It makesd a nice crackling popping sort of sound as the nail tears free of its nail bed Having done all three fingers he injected the nail beds with Sodium Glutonate solution, packed them in the SG gell and wrapped them up with heaps of padding and gave me some '24 volt' pain killers.

Don't ever muck around with high strengtrh HF - or if you do make sure you have the training and appropriate equipment and safety measures.

I never removed the top of the bottle, just lifted up and insected and returned it to the alum bed in the box. Turned out the poly cap had a minute crack it it. Fuming had let a trace amount of HF acid to condense on the outside of the bottle top.

Nowdays I use Alubrite type cleaners used for etching/cleaning aluminium - they are only about 1% HF and I am very careful with that. If it takes a couple of weeks to clean the quartz out - Thats OK the gold is not going anywhere

John

Hi John, sorry to hear about your episode, I've been lucky using the stuff before, but now after having owned a vineyard and doing a chemcare course, I always use a respirator, face shield, full chem suit and rubber boots, for anything ascertaining to deadly stuff. My last episode was making bio diesel in which you mix caustic soda with methanol before adding the stuff to fish and chip oil. You can either cause an explosion or burn yourself severely. Now I just dream about going detecting when I get time
cheers for now
Ric

Bushed-Tracker...........
CONGRATULATIONS ON A WELL WRITTEN,LUCID AND INFORMATIVE POSTING ON HYDROFLUORIC ACID.
FORUM MANAGEMENT SHOULD MAKE THIS A PERMANENT POSTING AS A REFERENCE FOR THE MEMBERS WHO ASK ABOUT HF ACID IN THE FUTURE.

We had a lass in the Recovery Plant lab cleaning diamonds in a final HF acid wash. Despite the best training and procedures accidents can still happen. She was wearing safety goggles, full face shield full chemical suit and elbow length gloves. A container she was using slipped, hit the bench and splashed the HF (High strength) upwards. It splashed under the face shield, onto her face and ran down the neck of the chem-suit and contacted her body.

Within less than a minute she was stripped right down and put into a saftey shower for several minutes and then had copious quantities of sodium glutonate gell massages in all over as we were not sure where the contact had got to. (No shortages of volunteers being a very atrractive young lady ) The RFDS was enroute from Darwin and within 2.5 hrs she was in hospital.

She was returned to work the following day with a vey slight pink stain on the side of her face and throat, this dissapered over the next few days. Aredit to a well trained team able to administer immediate remedial action.

She informed us that a gold prospector had been in the hospital while she was there. He had recieved a bad burn up his arm and had just washed it thotoughly with water until pain drove him to seek medical attention. Once the acid has got into the bone marrow, it travels quite quickly and the only thing that will stop it is amputation. Unfortuinately the prospector died as did another one in Perth many years ago running an illegal lab, he got a bad spill and dived into his swimming pool thinking that would neutralise it. It didn't.

Take care out there

John

Hi John
If any one wants to use HF then only use a max of 10% solution/concentration. U still need a permit from the Poison dept here in WA.
I used it for years and it was safe-however saying that I did have a heap of safety gear on and well ventilated--it used to be sold as RUSTIBAN.

The gentelman that dived into the pool would have survived but for one reason--he left his cloths on when he got out of the pool and the HF was imbeded in his cloths--further more he was a chemist and had the acid at home workin with it.

!0% will get the gold clean but it will not eat away at the quartz or iron stone species. It does whiten the quartz.

One thing I did notice with the ulrasonic cleaners from Audi was that after cleaning gold there was a trail of very small fines in the bottom of the bowl.
A sniffer bottle would be handy.

Regards
Oneday69

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