Since ancient times, various jewelry is in great demand not only among women, but also among men. Gold products have always been and remain in the first place. Many people think about how to gild their favorite silver or copper ring, because it seems like an overwhelming task. But this is not at all the case.
We prepare gilding solutions ourselves
To gild an object, you need a solution, or rather, dissolved gold. To get it, you need to dissolve gold in the so-called "aqua regia" - a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids. It is necessary to take them in a ratio of 3: 1. After the gold has dissolved, it is necessary to evaporate the liquid. This must be done very carefully, because you can get burns to your hands, face or respiratory tract. What's left is chlorine gold. It must be dissolved with a solution of potassium cyanide, and then mixed with elutriated chalk. The latter is needed so much to get a slurry of a liquid consistency. Taking a brush, you need to cover the object that you want to gild with the resulting gruel, and after a while it needs to be washed and polished.
To gild steel and iron, a solution of gold chloride is often used, which is mixed with ether. It evaporates, and the gilded surface must be rubbed with a cloth. You can make a gold pattern. To do this, take a quill pen, moisten it in gilding and draw the desired pattern or line.
Gold silver and more
Zinc and silver items can also be made gilded. For zinc, a paste is used, which is prepared from 20 g of chlorine gold with the addition of 60 g of potassium cyanide and 100 g of pure water. This mixture must be shaken and filtered. Add a mixture of tartar and chalk to the filtrate. Take 5 g and 100 g, respectively. This mixture must be added until you get a not very thick gruel. You need to apply with a brush.
For gilding silver, you need to use a special solution. There are 2 options for its preparation, but the most popular is one. To prepare it, you need chlorine gold, potassium cyanide, table salt, fashion and water (10 g, 30 g, 20 g, 20 g and 1.5 liters, respectively). The objects to be gilded are first calcined and then etched in a solution of sulfuric acid, after which they are momentarily dipped in nitric acid. Next, you need to do the following - you need to tie the items with brass wire and briefly dip them into the mixture, which is prepared from sulfuric, nitric and hydrochloric acid. After that, we rinse them with water, dip them in mercury, and then in water. After 30 seconds, dip it into the gilding liquid. Hot sawdust is used for drying.
