Turning a BLOB into PURE GOLD!

It's so cool to finally see a non-chemist do this. Honestly you did really well and your yield is the highest ive seen for this, especially for a first try.

I am 100% sure that if children at school watched this video in a chemistry class there would be a huge increase in interest in that subject, good job on the process and on filming it well (y)

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how much work he put into this gold?

That was so satisfying to watch! Glad you had the patience to go through the whole process!🎉

I recently just bought my first gold bar that is only 1 gram and it was pretty expensive. The fact that this turned out to be 213 grams is pretty wild. To put that in perspective, that blob of gold is worth $14K+ right now.

Very good and well described video. I am a retired metallurgist who worked for many years in the gold mining industry in Western Australia. I managed laboratories where we not only conducted our own assays on bullion by traditional fire assay methods - we also produced our own 99.9% "proof" gold to use as standards in the fire assaying processes. Our method of producing "proof" gold was very similar to what you have shown here, except that after the aqua regia digestion, we filtered out any remaining solids (silver chloride) and took the solution up in hydrochloric acid / reduced over heat and re-filtered a couple of times before finally taking up in distilled water giving us about 5 litres of a very clear, but still acidic solution containing the gold. We then slowly added caustic soda to this clear solution while gently stirring - the metallic gold precipitating out of the solution looked like "gold rain" falling to the bottom of the beaker. Precipitate was then washed in distilled water a number of times before drying. We then weighed out one gram lots of this dry precipitate into small china / porcelain crucibles and put into a dedicated furnace to melt down / anneal into small gold buttons or "prills". These were then put through manual "bullion rolls"and rolled out into long strips, which were stored and cut up when required to make "proof" standards to compare routine assay results against.
You could also purchase certified "proof" gold ribbon and solutions from the Perth Mint for use in making your own "standards" but these were very expensive. As a result, we only very rarely purchased these standards and used them to confirm / validate our own site-produced standards - usually when conducting assays for other clients / joint venture partners etc.

With such a low Karat Gold, your best course would have been to first use only Nitric Acid, which would have dissolved all base metals and left you with nearly pure Gold that could have then been moved to Aqua Regia for refining. This would have avoided the creation of Silver Chloride.
I must say though, not too shabby at all for your first time. Keep it up! And feel free to message me if you have any refining questions.

This was so cool and educational. Seeing the whole process of gold extraction from an ore is mesmerizing, and way more complex than I imagined

This is seriously one of the best videos I’ve seen in at least the last year or two! Outstanding work and your diligence is impressive! Thanks for doing this!

I really liked the video. I was glad to see a metalsmith with a sense of humor to do the chemical things (with precautions!) to refine this mixed formation. It made it fun to watch. And probably gives us all some hope to find some blobs to turn to gold someday too. How many Troy oz was the refined gold?

Okay, just for future reference, on your second refining, filter the solution until it is crystal clear! To avoid the silver problem completely, skip the Nitric acid step and just use hydrochloric acid because it can dissolve the silver without any help from Nitric acid. When the solution stops reacting with your gold, then you know that the silver is in the solution and you can pour that solution into a 5-gallon bucket with some big pieces of copper. The copper will cement out the silver leaving you with cement silver that is 98% pure and can easily be smelted and turned into a silver bar.
Anyway, once your hydrochloric acid stops reacting you have a couple of options.
1) You can remelt the gold, pour it into a bar and then run the bars through a press turning them into very long paper thin ribbons of metal.
2) You can go right to making your aqua regia! (Make sure you filter your solution until it is crystal clear!)

As a chemist im actually impressed 👏Thinks dont always work like the books say and many people in the lab go insane about it and call it a day but you kept trying 🚬you got my respect👊

A regular chemist wouldn't struggle with the chemical-related part, but would struggle with the actual goldsmith-related part, so seeing a goldsmith who didn't struggle with the gold smithing part, but with the chemical part, is truly an interesting change in roles.
Also *3:29* RIP blob 2023-2023. He will be missed ;~;

Probably the last subject I expected to be watching but certainly a pleasantly surprising process for this layman. This could have been a boring process but your production made this quite interesting. Well done! Thanks for sharing.

Seen a million vids of this but it never gets old and you presented it in a super fun & enjoyable way. Diving into the silver extraction vid now, cheers!

You described everything between an exceptional manner and easy for the uninitiated to understand
untrained ! I can only congratulate you and express my admiration for your effort !
Thank You !

His is one of the best and most entertaining video's I've seen in a while on youtube. I have not seen a video that kept me this exciting from beginning to end, to see what the result was going to be without skipping, although I like science... I really get distracted soon. Also, your voice is very soothing and relaxing!

This was honestly amazing to watch, its always cool to see chemical refining of gold :). Iirc theres a youtuber that does paydirt videos and gold panning, and keeps the runoff or whatever its called and later refines it in a similar way iirc and gets a good chunk from that. Honestly seeing you get a loss of barely 9 grams was really impressive.

As a metal detectorist, many years ago, I found a similar yet much smaller blob. It had silver and gold melted together. A local historian (Southern Missouri) showed me photos of recovered items from local bandits. Among the items were 'cobs' that were the stolen booty that the bandits had melted and then distributed to the gang. Apparently this practice was commonplace during and after the civil war for that region. (Quantrill raiders)

It's amazing to witness the transformation of raw materials into something so valuable and precious. Your dedication and hard work have truly paid off!

Dude, I used to fabricate on-lays, inlays & even a quadrant bridges made of gold for a long time, kinda missed it, Thanks for reminding me specifically each time you quench it!😎

Awesome! Thx for walking us through what must’ve been a painstaking (but rewarding) process. Glad I didn’t have to do the dishes afterward!

Really enjoyed seeing all your hard work. Great job at filming, editing, and the audio sounded great. Liked and subscribed 🙂 I didn’t know how much work goes into refining gold. I got a real education here. Thank you 👍🙂

when you said you werent a chemist and have never done gold refinery like that before i was skeptical but u did a very thorough job and turned out a great yield well done, that gold looks amazing, never gets old looking at that shiny 24k blob

These are the kind of science experiments i wished they conducted in high school. Never thought of watching someone turn a piece of blob into pure Gold. You sir are definitely the Modern Goldsmith.

that whole process looked beautiful. the colors, the emotions when dealing with this stuff.. that’s why i became a lab technician / chemist

Hats off to your patience bro ❤️ loved the video loved the process. More power to you!

I’m happy I watched this video, it’s actually very satisfying to see and to know that it is possible to purify metals like gold

World economy in simple words (I'm an engineer, not an economist): First, goods exchange. You hunt and risk your life, you need bricks to build a shelter. You give meat from your hunt to the brick maker for the bricks. But what if he wants something else, not meat? You need to find someone to give you what he wants in exchange for your game meat, and if that one also wants something else situation gets very complicated very fast. But... Someone discovers Gold (or pearls or whatever, something scarce) and convinces everyone to want it, more of it.

I watched every single second of this video and enjoyed every single second! Lol! Well done! Thanks so much for just everything about it. I went panning for Gold in Alaska this past year and there is something about GOLD that is just satisfying to play and work with!

This is easily one of the best, well documented videos I've ever seen on Clip-Share. Amazing watch. Totally captivated the entire time.

The amount of time and effort you put into this video is outstanding

This was incredibly rewarding to watch. Thank you for documenting this and sharing the process with us!

You made this process look very simple and very satisfying. I've watched many refining videos and done it myself, and this was a great video

You really deserve such purity level as i can see your determination and hardwork; bro you are really an amazing person

You entertain me so much and it’s so cool that you don’t do tennis but still able to do all of that extracting 99% gold is very hard so you are very talented

This is definitely not your average jeweller channel 😍 i’ve always loved your videos, and this turn you’ve taken makes you even more awesome

The gold and silver videos were some of the best videos I've seen on Clip-Share in a long time. Thanks for taking the time to make them.

First time watching your video, I really really enjoyed the style of the narration and intermittent jokes! The process itself was really satisfying to watch as well, thank you for a great, entertaining and educational video! The outcome was truly beautiful.

Those look like the regular yellow coded filters, not the "olive" ones; consider getting the multi-gas/vapor ones, they might be better for this. Also, a quick-latch "cool flow" respirator might be more comfortable and ideal for quick breaks full of fresh probiotic rich air depending on where you are/what's in your environment.

Gosh this video made me cry. How far has humanity come. Imagine how the ancient Egyptians were casting gold, or how the Mayans and the Aztecs were doing the same. Wonder how they did it. What they used. But whatever it may be, casting metals is a craft that goes back to the very beginning of humankind. Yet, here I am today…completely blown away by how a piece of rusty metal turned into one of the most beautiful and precious objects in the world. Kudos to you!

First time I watched this process was NileRed refining a viewers gold. It’s cool to see a gold smith do it just using some research. The yield was very high I was surprised. In the original block there was a huge section of dirt and other metals and I thought that would bring the yield down a lot from the initial estimate. Great video!

Awesome video. Good job on the process of extraction and refining. Plus really well shot and great voice over.

As a chemist, it hurts so much seeing you use the Erlenmeyer flask with the Buchner filter, and the vacuum flask as an Erlenmeyer. For anyone wondering, the Buchner goes with the vacuum flask joined with a rubber seal, and u connect vacuum on that tube on the side so it filters faster. The erlenmeyer flask has that shape (that kinda cone form) so it reduces the fumes of the solution you have inside. But I honestly have to admit, you did an excellent job!

Well done, man , it's people like you that make humanity continue forward .

It's the mercurial surface tension thing of the heated gold that I hadn't noticed before. Truly an enchanting metal

Not just because I'm tired even watching this incredible work, I'd surely drink that orange juice(I wanted it so much when I saw it lol), so I'll never attempt such a work. A great work!

That’s over $13k of gold?! Did the client pay you with a chunk of the blob? Considering the time, materials, etc maybe they just gave you the blob in whole lol 😅 Excellent video! It was cool to see the chemistry behind the process, and I wish we learned more about this aspect of the craft in jewelery school. 😊

This was incredibly satisfying to watch! Amazing content. Thank you for sharing.

@12:00 there is a story of an old gold mine in colorado flooding and the water being released accidentally into the Animus river. Subsequently the river turned this color -yellow orange..It reminded me of that and perhaps some of the molecules that floated out of the mine were gold among the other metals that polluted the river. its fascinating because these colors are identical and it was indeed a gold mine!

fantastic video. Will be sharing with my ASN N4 Chemistry class tomorrow. I love how you have researched the chemistry despite it not being your specialist area!

Watching this video is like watching a magician turn a blob of clay into a gold bar, except without the hat and cape! I'm pretty sure if I tried to turn a blob into gold, I would end up with a fancy paperweight at best. But these guys make it look easy! It's like they have the Midas touch, but for blobs!

That was pretty cool man. I've seen this done before but because you said you haven't done this before had me on the edge of my seat 🙂👍🏼. I had to subscribe. I wish you nothing but the best. Thanks for the Video, can't wait to check out the rest. God Bless you brother. Later

i didnt think i'd watch this all, but this was extremly enjoyable i couldnt stop!. Thank you for making this video!

Fascinating to watch, thank you for taking the time to show us this

It was amazing seeing clay turned into gold. 🥰

This was so satisfying to watch and gain so much knowledge in the process. I’m subscribed and ready to divulge

I truly appreciate your dedication and hard work, for that I subbed. ❤

Jordan this is crazy! Your talent and passion go so much further than surface level jewelry. Your depth of appreciation for your craft is one of the reasons I cherish my engagement ring (other than the man who gave it to me of course haha). It is an honor to have had something handmade by someone who truly is a master at the craft

A lot of people use nitric acid alone first to dissolve the other metals present, which can be poured off. The down side of this is that you go through a lot of expensive nitric doing this. In the liquid state, yellow is a sign of the presence of gold. Green is typically silver or copper, but copper can also be blue. Using a lot of distilled water helps as it allows the metal salts to have something to dissolve into.

It's refreshing seeing such a high yield. I'm used to reactions that you're lucky to break the 20s with, I was shocked it was so close to the predicted number.

The reactions between all the chemicals is just so mesmerizing these videos are amazing to watch. Keep up the amazing work!

That was awesome, makes me want to collect gold plated stuff to refine down (since jewelry is expensive), also earned a new sub with this one

Wow, thank you for creating a pleasurable and educational video of your practical, exploratory process. I had a concept in my head but never researched actual gold refining before. This well documented and explained video has expanded my understanding of biblical references to refining. I have gained new appreciation for the effort and value behind the amount of gold utilized and spoken about in the old testament. I have a very different understanding now of the comparison made between the purification of people to the process of refining of silver and gold, or 7 times refining. Thank you for sharing your work.

I’m a chemist and work with aqua regia frequently- you did a fantastic job, but I am wondering how you handled the aqua regia waste. If left unneutralized in a plastic waste container, it can eat at the plastic and spill everywhere! love you channel and have been watching for a while :)

Incredibly awesome storytelling and video recording. Thank you so much

GREAT video and thanks! But, perhaps one of the most important questions to be asked is: where did the initial blob come from?😎

This is the best video I have seen yet for learning the process. All the other videos skip steps. Or don’t explain very well. Thank you.
Im curious on what your thoughts are on using vinegar, salt, and hydrogen peroxide to make aqua regia. We can’t get nitric acid in Canada so I’m trying to find something else that works.

so awesome. i have been collecting processors and memory chips for almost 10 years now, and i have like, almost half a garbage bag full. i wonder how much gold i could get and how i could extract it... maybe i'll try this some day.... or something similar.. awesome video!!!

I was waiting for you to precipitate the Pb with H2S04. I thought the blob may contain a some lead, but maybe not much. Stanous test not yellow, so probably not much Pt or Pd. Fun though, never had a blob like that!

The orange fumes were mostly nitrogen dioxide and you were correct about not wanting to breathe those. They were also an indication there was a fair amount of silver mixed with the gold which was the main reason there was so much metal left after the first try at dissolving it. Silver doesn't dissolve well in aqua regia so it took several repeats. The gold you get when you precipitate it is incredibly fine. There's not enough surface on any given particle to really reflect light so it looks like clumpy brown flour. Just going by appearance, that button is 99%+ pure. The initial blob didn't look to be a very consistent alloy so you got a really good yield. Given that you hadn't done it before you did a great job.

Thank you for your time making the video. I really enjoy it a lot. Master piece!!!!

This was amazing to watch and I leanrt a lot! Fantastic video
My Q: So has 9 carat gold just not been refined down? Or do they refine it amd then add a metal back in?

Thank you for this lesson. I watched from the start to the end. Even though I have not understanding of those chemicals but I do understand that learning is a life long process. Their is so much to learn in life and to become pure gold in character we are to go through our crucibles in life.

The fact that this guy took sometime off the video to warn against the dangerous nature of this process makes me so happy becus some ppl forget to mention or just say do not try this at home and leave it there…

Random find for me, quite rewarding to watch. While the temptation to try this at home is fairly high, unfortunately I'm all out of random weirdly heavy blobs of metal.

This was byfar one of the best videos I have ever seen. You didn't go too heavily into the chemistry and kept it at a low high school level that was easy to understand. I can't wait to see you do the same for turning silver back into the pure ore. When you make the rings or whatever out of these blobs, please make it a bit of a retrospective of the whole process.

Nice video. Did you keep track of how much HCl and HNO3 you ended up using in the purifying process? It would be nice to get an idea of how much you put into the process

That was so worth the watch. I have always wondered how it’s done and, you made it particularly informative.
Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the education. It's content of this nature that keeps me watching. Good job.

Awesome stuff. Literally we are studying all the chemical processes involved in this video in India in class 10th.🙂

I'm not one to subscribe very often, but that was definitely earned. A lot of work, plus I have a soft spot for gold refining. Good job, it sure was a pretty blob at the end.

I love this video
Not only is it fun to see a non-chemist try something like this - and for it to succeed so well (seriously your yield is astonishing)
This video also has story to it, *The Blob* is a lovely little character and im happy to see him looking purer and healthier than he's ever been
Thank you for this

Great video! It was really interesting watching the chemical reactions!

I am glad that i discovered this channel. You have a really amazing content.

Awesome job with this video. I'm so happy I came across this. I learned a lot. Thanks 👍👍

This video was so therapeutic. Thanks a lot for the gold lesson, too...👍

Awesome video. I wish one day I buy all the equipment that you have and make similar kind of videos 😊

I really enjoyed the process for the gold refinement. It helps me understand all of the gold miners excitements of finding flakes of gold.

Definitely not a chemist myself, but for a first try that was pretty good imo!

Beautiful video love the editing. I love the sound design. Absolutely beautiful. Keep at it man

One off the very best gold extracting video so far. Simply Loved it all the way, and Sir you have a very pleasant voice.This video is far far best for teaching the younger generation..
All the very best regards from Pakistan.. ❤❤❤❤❤

This was truly interesting and educating, thank you!

This was SUPER interesting. Entertaining, and I learned something. Keep posting Modern Goldsmith.

This was extremely cool!!! I really love your channel because you, unlike other channels aren't a 'ultra luxe' channel showing off but you're actually interested in gold and your skills as a smith and in teaching us. ❤️
Will you do something with silver or titanium next?

I must admit, I truly enjoyed your video! Very well done!❤

it's the first Clip-Share video that I found good suspense in it, and I couldn't touch the forward button to see the end without watching every second of the "Transformation" into one piece of Gold.

Love this video man you make me sure I wanna be a chemist or something like that when I'm older

I just thought you'd melt a blob and somehow seperate
chunk of gold from it. Amazing process you had. 👍

Nicely done. Both the extraction and the video. 👍🏻