Heather Coleman wrote:

When I decided to finally do something with this blob I re-melted it
AGAIN in a small pure porcelain (unglazed) crucible that I made with
some flux and then beat it into a ring... this time I managed to create
it into a small doughnut shape that I beat on a ring making stake and I
almost got it to a ring that I could wear but because I did not keep
annealing it often enough it split...

So the gold went back and got remelted yet again!

You probably could have welded that split back together, if you have a
small torch flame.

While making the final rings I annealed the metal very often to soften
it... sometimes I quenched it in acid while it was still very hot and
the metal surface when beaten on the stake was very silver coloured, not
gold at all (?!)
Other times I quenched it in acid when it was much cooler and the
surface was a pale golden colour.

I don't know anything about this acid quenching, and my little amount of
gold work is in the area of reclaiming and refining gold as pure as I
can. But, a very small amount of some metals can turn the gold to a
pretty white color. Most of the contaminating base metals can be
removed with acids when it is cool. But, then, maybe you don't want
to remove all the base metal for jewelry.

Jon