[Jewelry making - Article 00276] - Re: [Orchid] Melting gold...

[Dennis Loss]

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    Hello, the white stuff you see people adding to their crucibles is
    probably borax. It is used to create a molten glass like coating
    over the gold while it is in a liquid state. This is to help prevent
    oxidation of the copper and silver in the alloy. You don't need a
    lot. Just a thin coating will do. No don't oil a crucible, when you
    are using a new crucible heat it up first and add a bit of the borax
    and melt that onto the surface of the inside where the gold will be.
    What kind of casting are you doing? Are you doing gravity pours into
    metal ingot molds? That is the only time I know of where people
    sometimes oil the mold. If this is what you are wanting to do, then
    use something like cooking oil. NEVER use an oil that has Teflon in
    it, Such as WD-40. It is highly toxic when it is overheated. It will
    give you the Teflon flu. You will get very very ill for a short
    time. You will develop very bad flu like symptoms, fever, chills,
    head ache, body pain. etc. It will kill birds if they are exposed to
    burning Teflon. Even an overheated skillet can cause birds to die. I
    don't use Teflon now for anything in our house. A co-worker treated
    a flask with WED-40 and we all became very ill. then there was a
    program on TV about Teflon and overheating. 

Good luck Dennis

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