Gold plating pan

[JPK]

I’ve never tried it but wonder if there’s a home hobbiest way of applying gold to a pan. I have a gold crown that was removed and a up coming flintlock project that brings this to mind. I’ve done soldering and brazing and wonder if it was possible. If so what flux or any details on how you’ve done it.

[Dewster]

I am pretty sure that the gold is almost surely gold foil ,not cast gold.

[LynnC]

I believe JerryWH (Jerry Huddleston) posted this very thing many years ago. Perhaps a site search may turn up the post.

[Jim Kibler]

Gold sheet.  Thicker than foil.  The exact thickness, I'm not sure.  I would get with Frank House.  He's done this work before.

Jim

[Jakob]

This might be an easier way of doing it:
https://goldensolution.co.uk/collections/gold-plating-solution

I used their silver solution to plate the furniture on my Jaeger project

Masked it off with nail varnish





Finished result doesn't show well in pictures, but I was very surprised by the result.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

The pan of a flintlock receives serious hot gases upon every ignition.  I doubt, but don't know for sure, that plating would hold up.

Jerry described lining the pan using gold sheet, and he liked 24 k gold.  He'd raise tiny hooks with a sharp graver over the entire surface of the pan, cut the sheet to size and then gently forge the gold down into the hooks.  That's a simplified description but is the gist of the process.

[smart dog]

Hi,
I believe the edges of the pan were also undercut slightly to fit the gold as well as the teeth or burs cut in the pan.  Gold plating won't last very long unless it was really thick.  Keep in mind, a gold lined pan was always associated with a gold lined vent hole.  The gold or platinum in the touch hole was the main feature to purchase and if you had a little more money, you might add a gold lined pan.

dave

[JPK]

Thanks for the suggestions, I have used the silver plate and was pleased with the results but it is thin! The mechanical way seems to be the leading manner and maybe if I can shape this crown into a sheet then try it. I’ve read that crowns can be from 10 to 22 karat but there isn’t a way for me to judge that. I had thought some type of melted on technique had merit but I don’t want to reinvent a process. I’ll post what results I get should I get brave enough to try lining the pan. But I’m still open to all suggestions.

[Daryl]

Seems to me, the gold crowns are very hard, alloyed with something gold.  You can try hammering it into a sheet, I guess.
That would be the only way to find out. How does one anneal gold? Does it work-harden like brass and copper or steel, for that matter?
The gasses coming out the vent will melt/burn away the bottom left corner (right hand lock) of a chert and/or flint that sits into the pan slightly.
I have a couple locks that do that and the flint suffers from the vent's flame.

[smylee grouch]

Not Gold but I did " TIN " the bottom of a pan with silver solder once. Looked kinda nice but burned off in a long afternoon of shooting.

[Birddog6]

Jerry H. told me the same thing. Laid a thicker sheet of gold in the pan on hooks, burrs & undercuts on the edges & forged it in. Allot of gold inlays done the same way in barrels & etc.  he would cut it out, prepare it, forge the gold sheet in, smooth it, then engrave it. And I am quite sure it was time consuming, but have not tried it in gold. Did a couple small plates in brass & some bands in brass.
Too time consuming & tedious for me. Jerry liked that stuff. I think the more tedious it was the more he liked it.

[kutter]

Most dental crowns are made up in 12 and 14k gold. Sometimes a bit higher k. But usually below 18k alloy.
The higher the 'k',,the higher the pure gold content/percentage,,and the softer the alloy is.

Put the 'k' # /24 and that gives you the fraction of pure gold content of the alloy
14k is 14/24ths pure gold content
24k is 24/24ths,,so it is 100% pure gold content.

Simply plating the pan can be done with one of the Brush Plating outfits sold for simple Jewely plating and touchup work. They work quite well actually. Masking off the area you don't want plated with simple shellac works fine.
Copper is first plated, then lightly buffed. Hand polished with semichrome polish works well.
Cleaned again and then the gold plating applied. That gets hand buffed as well. There you have it.
Power for the simple set up, I use/used a small MC battery charger set on 6v.
Texas Platers Supply is the one I have. Don't know if they are even in biz anymore.
Caswell Industries sells similar 21st Century kits.

All that said,,the plating is just that,,plating. It's thin no matter if you brush plate or industrial electroplate.
It won't last too long in a flash pan I wouldn't think.
It'll look OK if looks are all that matter!

To line the pan with thin sheet gold, you can actually soft solder the gold sheet to the pan surface.
24k and 22k sheet gold forms very easily,,especially the 24k.
22k will work harden a little as you form it into the pan or what ever shape you are working it into.
You will feel it as you are punching it into shape.
To anneal it simply heat it red hot and either let it cool off on it's own. Or you can quench it to cool it.
There,,it's now dead soft again.

Any k gold will work. Even lowly 10k. It just work hardens faster when pounding it into the shape you want.
The lower karats like 10,12,14 are alot like working with brass.

The gold sheet will stretch as you punch it into shape, but that will make the layer thinner.
So don't over work the gold, I assume you only want to line the pan itself and not the 'sideboards'.
It will form easily and if needed simply lift it off and anneal if you think it needs to be.
I even anneal 24k when I work with it. Seems to help with both wire and sheet gold.

Now you have a sheet of gold formed into the shape that fits into the pan.

You can simply soft solder it into place.
Gold accepts either evil Lead/Tin or the greeny Tin/Silver soft solders easily.
I use standard paste soft solder flux. Nothing special when soldering gold onto something sweat soldered.
Same standard practices,,clean, very close fit, tinned surfaces, don't over heat!
If you solder into place,,any karet gold can be used as the method of attachmnet is not dependent on the softness of the alloy.
That is something that is important if you choose to attach using the following method..

You can attach the gold form to the steel pan  by using what engravers often use to attach soft precious metal overlays/inlays.
You need to make a small wood chisel like 'punch'.
Very sharp, no more than 1/16" wide blade for working the concave shape of the pan. Shaped just like a flat wood chisel.

With this chisel, you are going to make a series of stab strikes into the metal where the gold must adhere.
Place the chisel upright on the surface on the point, then tip it back a few degrees so when struck, the chisel digs into the surface and kicks up a burr.
You will make these cuts in repetitive strikes across the surface in a row. Then right behind it lay in another row, and another row behind that untill you have gone from one side of the part to the other.
The surface is now row after row of parallel lines/burrs

Now return to the starting point to do the same exercise again.
Following the same direction across the part BUT turn the chisel so it cuts across those rows you just made by about a a 30* angle or so. Nothing too technical about this.
This will shear the first row and create 'teeth'. Very sharp teeth.
Do this all the way across the surface as above.

Lastly,,go back to the FIRST row of lines you did,,this time turn the chisel the 30* the other way from the first row and cut in a third row. This one will shear the first two you just did and create many more sharp tiny teeth.

These teeth is what the soft gold will impale itself on and hold fast.
Keep the surface clean, don't touch it so no oil or contamination gets onto the fresh steel teeth.
If you want to, some clean the surface with laq thinner or acetone just before placing the gold down.
I don't and have never had a problem.
If you do, use a brush to apply. An artists brush so it actually brushes..A toothbrush will melt or soften with acetone and laq thinner. Then you have a real mess!
Try and clean the toothy surface with a cloth or paper towel is a loosing battle as well. Use a clean soft artists brush if you choose to do so.

Check the surface from the side low angle for any teeth that are of extra length. Snip these off as they will pierce through the gold surface and end up discoloring and otherwise perfect gold look.
Probably not as important here if the gun is used. But it's just a standard step when inlaying figures. The extra long teeth end up being blued when the gun is finished and it doesn't look so great.


Gold time..
Place the formed pice down onto the surface. Lightly press it into position. It will already start to grab in position,,especially if made from 24k.
22k will work OK. Anything less is very difficult to overlay with this method as the alloy is too hard and then work hardens even more as application begins.

It won't take much force at all to punch it (24k) into place. For the rounded shape of the pan,,simple  dowel shaped punch to fit the contour is more than enough to 'set' the gold into place. That entire area can be made to look nice and smooth when set. Very little after polishing should be needed.

Don't over work the gold. It's soft. It'll impale itself easily on those teeth and if done right you won't be able to pull it free..
Plus extra pounding will only stretch the gold thinner and the nice pre-shape form you made will start to disappear as the gold extrudes like a piece of soft lead being hammered.
You gain nothing by pounding harder and longer on it.

If some of the gold has extruded outside the pan edges onto the flat area,
Trim that off and polish the area flat.
That'll do it..

[smylee grouch]

Thanks Kutter for that explanation .

[JPK]

Kutter, you have covered this very well and have emboldened me to do it. Thank you.

[Goo]

I just had a discussion about this with Mike Lea you have to use 24K for this because the alloys in the "K" karated gold will be attacked by the Sulphur and other chemicals in the powder.    You will be left with a porous overlay in the pan.

[Birddog6]

Kutter..........  Awesome tutorial  Thank you

[davec2]

Having made thousands of gold crowns over the course of my life, the first thing I would ask is how old the crown is.  Older dental alloys were most often 18 karat (i.e. 75% gold) but were alloyed with a fair amount of palladium and platinum, both of which make the alloy much harder than any normal jewelry type 18 karat gold.  It would not be a good alloy to use in your particular application.  More recent gold alloys are even worse to use as they have other non precious metals as part of the alloy, all of which make the gold much harder to work with.  Just my opinion, but you will spend a huge amount of time and then come up with an unusable bit of gold to line your pan... unless you can cast a net shape pan liner (which would take equipment and much more gold than is in a single crown) .  Also be aware that if you contaminate any gold alloy with tin, lead, or zinc, the gold will become brittle enough to break with your fingers.  You can certainly soft solder (low fusing alloy) it to steel, but in a thin section the strength of the gold (which is not all that great to begin with) is almost completely destroyed.  Whenever someone brings me gold that has been contaminated with those metals, the only way I can recover the gold is by complete dissolution in aqua regia and then re-precipitation (which is a standard method or refining scrap gold).

I did this type of pan lining with Jerry WH.  The process of undercutting the edge and raising alternate direction burrs is the correct and historical method.  Jerry would also never bother to use any alloy less than 24 karat (i.e. 100% gold) as he considered it a waste of his time.  And he used gold sheet at least 0.025" thick for a pan liner....0.030" is better.  Electroplating will disappear after a few shots.

I have centrifugally cast a thin 24 karat gold pre-form after carving a wax pattern in the pan I wanted to line but then installed it with the raised burr method....it just gave me a slightly thicker and already formed liner to start with.  If I were to solder a liner like this into a steel pan, I personally would use a gold based solder that melts at 1100 degrees F.

You can try using the old crown.  It will need to be annealed often if you are trying to roll or hammer it into a usable sheet.  If you push it too far without annealing, it will crack and you will need to re-melt into a button and start over.  All precious metals (as well as copper and brasses) anneal by heating to a dull red and then quenching.

Best of luck to you.

[JPK]

My crown is about 20 years old and I will take your advice to heart. Asking is how I avoid reinventing the wheel!

[kutter]

Unless you know how to retrieve gold from scrap or know a certain piece of Unknownum is the karat gold you need and want, you are much farther ahead just buying a piece of 'sheet stock' gold in the karat and thickness you need for the job.

When you buy this stuff,  nearly always the thicknesses will be expressed in Brown& Sharpe (B&S) Gauge numbers.
Jewelry and sheet metal work uses this gauge thickness system.

After a while you get used to it and know what your common use gauge B&S matr'l is in .000" thickness. Just like working with Metric/English.



There are other simple conversion charts on the web as well.


When ordering gold and silver wire for engraving inlay I would always order 20, 22, 24, 26 & 28 gauges
That would cover any inlay work as well as figure work as I use the wire to build inlays.

For sheet gold  on a project like this,,just decide what thickness you want to use in .000"
Look up what the B&S gauge of the matrl will be,,or close to it.
Order that thickness or maybe you want one size thicker to be sure of enough matrl.

You order by the karat ( 24k in this instance I would assume)
Then the thickness of the sheet..the B&S gauge
Then how big a piece...
You can usually tell them to cut a piece to your specific demands if they are simple square corners.
1" x 1" for example.,,1/2" x 3/4",,,1/2" x 1/2",,,what ever you need.

They may have a minimum but I've never run into that. At the price of 24k,,it'll be plenty $$ anyway!
Put it on a charge card and wait by the mail box.

Even 24k they may ask if you want it 'annealed'. Sure.
I often anneal it quickly with a propane torch anyway.

I've used T.B Hagstoz for the last 50+ yrs.
https://hagstoz.com/contact/
Scroll down to the bottom of the page for an 800#

Lots of people use RioGrande Jewelry Supply
https://www.riogrande.com/

Most engravers/jewelry makers have a favorite they've stuck with over time. Gold is gold and the market sets the price. It changes every day, sometimes every hour.
So you won't often find posted prices listed for gold wire and sheet stock. You have to call to order.
RioGrande usually has the Market price of (pure) Gold listed but that's not what you pay anyway...you pay more!