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Trying to coat tungsten with .9999 Gold

August 8, 2011

Just been reviewing this great site as I've been trying to find out how I can go about to coat a small tungsten insert in pure .9999 gold to give my project the weight I want to appear as solid gold?

I have a few tungsten inserts approx 25 mm x 28 mm x1.5 mm & want to somehow cover them totally in gold. I don't want to gold plate them since it looks too cheap.

I'll need to make a mold of an original design I have from another piece of jewelry I want to copy that's similar to a dogtag in style.

I'll need to pour the gold in the mold so the insert is imbedded in the mold & then surrounded by the gold but I am unsure how would I suspend the tungsten insert in the mold so it is totally surrounded by the .9999 gold plus keep it intact within the mold so the tungsten insert is fully covered over.

What type of molding material would be recommended & the procedure to do such?

Can anyone offer any ideas how to go about this? Not sure if I'm explaining this right

Carl Kasualstra
hobbyist - Vancouver BC Canada

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August 9, 2011

Hi, Carl.

I'd probably try to do it in two shots. The mold could have a removeable insert. The tungsten would go into the insert so the bottom half was a tight fit, and you pour gold over the top half, with the top half of the mold whatever size you want, to allow whatever thickness of gold you want.

After it cools, you pull it out, pull the insert out, and put it coated end down into the mold, and pour gold over it again.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey