Tarnagulla Speci, D I Y Furnace And First Pour

[phoenix]

I finally got round to panning off the gold I recovered from that Tarnagulla speci I got a couple of years ago and ended up with 13.76 grams out of it. A bit disappointing, I was hoping it was going to be closer to the ounce, but the good news is I got nearly half an ounce out of that piece. the first pic is the Tarnagulla speci, and the 2nd pic is the gold I recovered from it.
I don`t have a lot of gold but I have wanted to make a ingot for a long time.
    I watched a heap of youtube clips about melting gold and then had a go at making a furnace. The first furnace was not a great success and the butane burners just didn`t cut it and then I came up with this one and bought the Bernzomatic TS8000 Torch Kit. Fortunately I had the fire bricks from a project from a couple of years ago and i already had all the tools I needed.   If I had a 2 1/4" inch hole saw I probably would have used that, but I had a 2½"  hole saw so that had to do.  One of my friends suggested the the flame should probably swirl around the cauldron so in that 3rd pic you can see I have offset the burner but I saw the heat was pretty well being lost straight away. I drilled a ½" hole in another block and put it over the 2½" hole and that`s when the magic happened.     For about the first minute NOTHING happened but then all a sudden a fierce flame leapt out of the ½" chimney. You can`t see it in the photo but the flame coming out the chimney was spinning like a tornado.  I could stand above it and look down through the hole and was able to watch the gold melt.  From when I lit the torch to when I poured the ingot no more the 10 minutes passed.  31.74 grams of pieces went in, 31.6 grams came out.  My first ingot and I am very happy with the furnace.
All I needed was couple of fire bricks, a hand saw, the burner, ½" drill and 5/8" drill, the hole saw and a cheap gold melting kit I bought on ebay for about 20 bucks.

[Busho]

Good stuff. I lived in Tarna for several years and know it like the back of my hand. Great little place. Shame it's lost it Caravan park/fuel and a couple of its shops. Just a pub and Post office now. Ironbark country, love it. I found a leader there years ago and got several ounces out of it in species that looked exactly, and I mean exactly, like that one. Still have one as keepsake. Wonderful tract of country through there, actually from Inglewood all the way through to Talbot. Ill post a pic of that specie when I find it, given I hang around that is. In 2 minds at present. Well done mate.

[Rivers rat]

Wicked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!its 2019 and i think they just started to  imported those tool in France not that they have to much gold but to melt jewellery i guess....

 

RR

[matt]

That's a great project and results. Thanks for sharing.

A quick bath in pool acid (muriatic) will clean up all the staining on your ingot. I pour a little bit into a plastic gold pan and swirl it around the ingot and it comes out bright and shiny. A gallon of the acid is only a couple dollars where I live.

[Gerry in Idaho]

Phoenix, That beautiful/ugly specimen ended up producing almost a half ounce of gold for you.  You enjoyed the hunt, enjoyed the find with a shitty grin when digging it up and now you learned how to make your own gold bars.  Detecting is one of the most enjoyable hobbies out there.  Keep it up and thanks for sharing.

[deutran]

Nice touch with the Dime,great post.

[beatup]

Great job on your first pour Phoenix

[Busho]

@phoenix  

Hi mate, cant find that specie. This came from the same line though. Same place and another little leader. Highly mineralised. Im thinking that other one must have got dollied up by mistake, can't think of any other reason I cant find it or didn't keep it.