Gidday guys, thought I’d do a wee post about some learning I did recently.
So I had this potential piece of gold that I found that I just couldn’t convince myself was indeed gold. I’ve seen a fair few nuggets so it wasn’t lack of experience. The piece just didn’t have the right surface appearance, colour was off as well. When I found it it was 3.7g and very dirty, put it in hydrochloric acid and it dropped to 3.56g and was cleaner. I then did an SG test, weigh it in air, weigh it in water and divide the dry weight by wet weight to get the density. This was coming in at around 8. Much too low for gold.
But I wasn’t convinced, the piece was full of porosity which I assumed would hold trapped air bubbles which would decrease its density result.
I debated with myself for a while if I should melt the piece down, thus getting a nice button without air bubbles. In the end I did this and lo and behold it now SGs at 18+. About right for gold with some metal impurities.
Now I’m kind of upset I melted a whacky looking nugget, but at least I know what I’ve got.
