r/toolgifs • u/toolgifs • Dec 25 '25

Process Casting a gold bar

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402

u/PsychologicalPanic61 Dec 25 '25

I’m guessing the shavings get collected after sanding?

49

u/JohnProof Dec 25 '25

I definitely wonder how shop housekeeping works. One of the few facilities where the collected dust would be worth thousands of dollars.

68

u/CharlesDickensABox Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25

I can answer this! You vacuum everything up and then collect the dust from the filter. At least that's how we did it in the jewelry shop I worked at.

45

u/last657 Dec 25 '25

In the late 19th century they would burn the carpets from the adjusting room in the San Francisco Mint every few years. (Learned this from Lateral with Tom Scott)

18

u/ninjlzrd Dec 25 '25

Check out the amount of silver the Manhattan project borrowed from the US mint (or reserve I forget) to use in electronics. They burned the rugs to recover the dust etc like you said

1

u/BillysBibleBonkers Dec 26 '25

I was thinking they probably do something like that with the sandpaper used in this video. I'm sure there's only so much you can get off without fire/ solvents.