16 Feb
2013
16 Feb
'13
10:54 a.m.
On Thu, 14 Feb 2013, Chris Tofu wrote:
Well plating can be accomplished in the home shop but
where are you
going to get the gold. Wait for a meteorite?
But it brings up an interesting idea of mine. Couldn't you reverse
plate the gold right off of pins and whatnot? No nasty chemicals, no
mess, no fuss.
Gold plating usually uses cyanide compounds, which many people consider "nasty
chemicals" (certainly chemicals
that one needs to work with carefully, but pretty common for both plating and case
hardening).
If you're using cyanide anyway, you might as well go ahead and use a modified
MacArthur-Forrest process and not bother with
the electricity. Pour your gold-containing objects in a dilute cyanide solution, recover
the gold by either electrowinning
or single-replacement with zinc.
At the end of the day either way is a lot of work for little gold.