Creating a Gold Ring from Scrap

Function: Mother’s Day Gift

Inspiration: I wanted to find a way to use all this junk metal that I got from eBay, my mom, things around the house, etc. 

Methods: 

Phase 1: Separation 

• Melting down the scraps with nitric acid and welding the metal with copper

Phase 2: Recovery

• Separating the gold from amalgam using nitric acid and concentrating the gold using chloroauric acid 

Phase 3: Melting Gold and Forming Ingot 

• Melted gold in a kiln with a torch and formed ingot

Phase 4: Making the Ring Mould 

• Carved a positive of the ring out of wax and cast negative in plaster

  Burned the plaster out and poured metal into the mould

Phase 5: Making the Ring

• Let the metal cool in its mould

• Remove by dissolving plaster with water

• Sanded and polished

Outcome: Success, 12 grams of 24k (100%) gold; my mother was very happy with it. I wanted to polish it further but she preferred the “rustic” appearance.

Failures and Challenges:

• I didn’t have enough gold for the first few attempts at pouring the ring and wound up with a ring band that was only 3/4 of a complete circle. When I finally had a successful pour and made a full band, I realized that I had forgotten to alloy the gold and ended up with a very soft, pliable ring. Not at all what I had planned. I then added some silver and copper to result in 22K gold and then poured another ring and finally had success.