All right, Cody-Don here and welcome back to my lab.
What have I been doing? Here, Let me fix this.
All right, let's try that one more time.
All right, that'll work.
Looks like we're doing something with gold cyanide and my tungsten cube.
Ahh, we must be gold plating it.
Which is interesting because tungsten plated in gold
would feel and act very similar to a solid chunk of gold because tungsten has about the same density.
This ought to be pretty interesting.
So this process will be very similar to the process I used to electroplate the
stainless steel measuring cups for my mom. In fact this is the exact same gold cyanide that I made in that video.
And we're just applying this to a tungsten cube today.
Got me a little beaker here with a little fork I'm going to use just to hold the cube.
Just like that, outside the beaker.
Where an electric current
will electroplate...
gold...
onto the surface of the cube.
But first, we've got to clean it, and that's what this stuff over here is for.
Scrub scrub scrub...
More scrub scrub...
Dry dry dry...
Just out of curiosity let's, see what it weighs now.
Alright, 295.03.
All right, positive electrode on the gold...
...and there we go!
We're about to have a gold cube.
In fact, if I cleaned it right, it should already be gold colored.
And it is.
Alright, let's have a look at it. See how we're doing after about 10 minutes.
It's very, uh...
brown...
With some stripes on it as you'd expect...
I think I'm going to rub this down a little bit with a steel wool, flip it over and put it back in.
No, I didn't just drop the cube and break the beaker, what would make you think that?
I just think that the pyrex dish would be much better suited for the task!
Alright, let's pull this thing out of there...
Assuming I didn't scratch it, I think that's us.
Looks like a gold cube to me!
Let's dry it off and polish it a little bit.
Alright, so I've polished it up with a rag and as you can see it's rather shiny.
There are a few places
Especially on the side right here where the gold has flaked off.
You can really see right there, but overall it's actually pretty nice.
The gold coating is fairly uniform.
Now let's tare out the scale. Let's see just how much gold we've put on it.
Okay...
Nine, five, eleven, so that's...
Seven...
Eight milligrams of gold that we put on there?
It's not a whole lot, but...
There it is.
Oh no, that's 80 milligrams. Yeah, that, that seems more reasonable.
So if you have this cube here, and you weren't sure if it was solid gold or not,
What would you do? Well,
Now maybe you've tested the outside you know that it is in fact 24 karat gold,
but...
You know one common way to see if that is 24 karat gold all the way through is to measure its, uh, volume...
And divide that by its weight to get the density.
If it's close to 19.3,then you'll know it's probably gold.
Yeah, 25.43.
Cubed, so that's 16.3871...
Cubic centimeters there.
Okay, so 295 divide that...
equals...
18 and some change grams per cubic centimeter.
So that's a little bit less than you would expect if it was 24 karat gold.
Bu,t you know, maybe it's not 24 karat gold all the way through.
And also, this cube's got a little bit of a beveled edge on each of its corners
So that could take off a little bit of weight also.
So...
Given that information, I would say it is fairly...
Y'know, I'd be fairly sure this was indeed gold.
But before you guys get excited, there is one test that you can do.
See this magnet?
It sticks to it.
And you might say, "Well, tungsten is not magnetic." Well, that's true, pure Tungsten isn't.
But, uh..
Solid chunks of tungsten like this that they sell...
Y'know, it's much easier to machine if it's been sintered with nickel
So...
It makes it a little bit magnetic so that it makes it pretty obvious that this is not solid gold.
But...
Y'know, the weight of this...
It's the closest thing to having a solid chunk of gold that...
I think I'll get in quite a while.
[Chuckles]
So here we go. I've got it on its little stand so you can see it a little bit better.
Also the white background. This'd probably make a good thumbnail.
[Chuckles]
Here we go.
If you guys happen to be visiting CVX Live in Salt Lake city this Friday from around
Noon to 4-ish, I think,
You might get a chance to actually hold this thing. I'll be bringing it with me. I will be attending that event.
I'm not a featured creator
Even though somebody last year asked me if I wanted to be and I said yes, that's as far as the conversation went, so...
I don't know.
But I will still be attending, for at least a little while. If you don't see me there well, you'll see me next time.
Y'know, while I'm at it...
Looks decent.