searcher1x
Active member
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2015
- Messages
- 27
I joined this forum a couple of months back, unfortunately I never fully understood what a wealth of information it is or the knowledge and years of experience amassed by many of it's members. Fact is, I never used or logged into the forum (other than once or twice) until the last week.
I stumbled across some information on the web about 8 months back talking about Gold From Escrap. Read the article and decided, “Hey, I can do that”. I already had a bunch of old towers, cords, PCI cards, printers and on and on. I understood enough to recognize two facts.
1st, I didn't know near enough to start reclaiming and refining PM's from escrap and needed to do much research. I did have some knowledge and experience working with chemicals, but not near enough
2nd, even though all the “junk” I had on hand would be a start, it wasn't near enough to make money from, serious or otherwise. I knew that to make any money I would need to find a way to access large amounts of old PC's and escrap or I would be wasting my time.
Little did I know where this new path was going to take me!
I read everything I could find online and, little by little, started to learn. Little did I know that 75% of what I was learning was false and misleading information. The authors of most of the information must be on some type of ego trip. Guess that's the beauty of the internet, if wrapped up and packaged real pretty you can fool people into believing just about anything! Well, fool me once shame on you; Fool me twice same on ME!
I found a way to get the computers and assorted electronics I needed and even found myself plunged into a new business. Buying old used electronics; some items would be refurbished and/or repaired and resold online; some items would be stripped for parts and resold online; some items would be broken down and recycled for scrap or broken down and any parts with PM potential would be separated and prepped for processing.
My quest for a source of affordable computers and assorted electronics had became a profitable little business. I get to travel around buying and transporting the electronics I purchase. Since most of the electronics have some years on them I get exposure to equipment and components I never knew existed and, for the reason just stated, much of the electronics end up broken down, the common metals and components recycled and sold for scrap and I have an ever growing stockpile of items loaded with PM's and waiting for reclaim/refine processing. That brings me to where I am now.
Before I ask for advice I want to say I have read Hoke twice and always have a .pdf copy open on my desktop so I can do a quick keyword search. First time I read it made no sense at all to me. Second time, I still walked away confused. The information in the book seemed to jump around all over the place and was not presented in what I thought was a logical order of progression. Yes, the author of the book does know her stuff, but she leaves a lot to be desired with the composition and presentation of her knowledge.
Also, the information she presented was in no way similar to anything I had found on the internet. The procedures and chemicals were slightly similar but for the most part entirely different. Every where in Hokes book when she talks of using AR to dissolve and suspend gold in solution, she stresses the point that to get the gold to drop you must and a little sulfuric acid to the solution after the gold is suspended, then boil the whole solution down to a paste like slurry and a lot of other things to get the gold to drop. Nowhere had I heard or read that information before. Even this week while searching and reading thread after thread on this forum I have yet to come across anything that says to boil AR before dropping the gold.
That being said, a few weeks back I decided that I needed to get my feet wet and try to process something. I had managed to collect 2lbs. of pins with some degree of gold on them; some fully plated, some partially plated and some with just the tips plated and figured this was as good a place as any to start. I had no idea that I had chosen the dirtiest, hardest and most time consuming material to start with. Guess we all have to mount the learning curve at some point, looks like I choose the worst place I could find to hop on board.
Took about a 1/2lb of pins and put in a small, plastic container that I could cap and shake regularly and covered with AP. A couple of weeks later I dumped the remaining 1.5lbs in a large container and covered with AP.
4 weeks later the small container had reduced in volume around 65%, happy camper I was not! Knew something was wrong but could not put my finger on it. Funny thing, there is very little credible information on the internet when it comes to pins. Almost everything I did find always talked about solid or fully plated pins and that information was sketchy and never addressed the problems I was experiencing. Started keyword searching Hoke and learned about addressing lead and tin contaminating as separate issues. Tried the different acid baths and still just could not seem to get the bulk to reduce very fast at all. Then I had a flash, why not burn the pins with a torch and get rid of a lot of the excess metal bulk that way. Nowhere had I read burning was bad, in fact what I had read seemed to indicate just the opposite.
Drained, filtered and washed the pins then dumped them in a stainless steel sheet-rock mud pan and fired up the torch. used a small mortar trowel to chop the pins up when they glowed red. Noticed some of the gold plating would melt and run together in clumps so I chopped them up also. Figured smaller particles would be easier to process. This reduced the bulk dramatically. Then I sifted all the material through a tea filter, washed in HCL and water and ran through the AP another time.
After a few days filtered, washed and decided it was time for the AC step. Wrong! I guess the pins were still loaded with base metals and very little were suspended in solution. After a week I decided they had dissolved as much as they were going to dissolve. Filtered, washed and put the remaining pins aside to address in the future. Decided to see if I could drop the gold from solution. Diluted, heated for a few hours to eliminate any excess chlorine and got out the old smb. After starting the drop I ran out of smb, no prob, it was late so I figured I'd get some more the next day and finish up. Every have one of those days that everything that could go wrong, would go wrong? Next day, I did!
Next day I picked up a bunch of different chemicals, even came across some ph down that I snatched up. Figured I'd get the smb at Lowe’s on the way home. Surprise, Lowe’s didn't carry stump-out, I would need to get that at Home Depot and that was 10 miles back the direction I had just came from What the heck, I remembered reading that smb became sodium bisulfite when added to water and I did have some ph down. I never noticed that ph down had an “a” instead of an “i” in it's name. Guess you can see where this is headed, right? Long story short, when the sb was not working I looked at the chemical component and started to wonder if I had screwed up royally.
That's when I really started to learn how valuable this forum actually is. Started searching and found a post where the poor guy had made the same error as I. Steve said all was not lost and outlined a few different ways the the gold could possibly be saved. I put the solution aside and will let you know what happens when I get back to it.
It had been a week since I had started processing the 1.5lbs of pins in the AP (did I mention that I had burned the crap out of those pins also to reduce their bulk? It was becoming apparent that there was something I was missing because at their current rate, it would be after Christmas before all the base metal was gone. Again, got back on the forum and started reading thread after thread. Then, for the first time in all the months since I had been studding and reading about recovering and refining, there it was, one of the wiser-than-me forum users said it ...you can't process magnetic pins with AP. What? Why hadn't any of the self proclaimed “experts” that did video after video on YouTube ever said that? Heck, they made processing pins seem like a walk in the park. Let me tell you, it's been anything but!
OK, it's never too late, took my pins, filtered, boiled in HLC for two hours, did multiple hot water baths and then pulled out the concentrated sulfuric acid. Covered the pins in H2O and added an equal amount of concentrated sulfuric acid to the pot and turned on the heat. Boiled the pins for 4 hours in the solution, what a difference! Cooled down and poured off the solution. Washed the pins 4 times in water. Then covered with water one more time and let set overnight. Today I put the pot back on heat and brought to a boil, filtered and repeated the wash 4 more times. Next covered pins with HCL, boiled for 1 hour, poured off solution and washed 4 times in boiling water. Covered with aged AP and placed aside for the night
When I was washing the pins after the sulfuric boil every time I washed the water went milk white. Same with the HLC, first couple of washes went milky white, the following 2 washes were sort of like skim milk with what looked like a distinct light orange solution floating on the top (maybe rust??)
Well, there it is, my shame for all to see!. I'm open to any feedback anyone can offer. Where I went wrong, what was going on and where I go now. Only concerned with the larger batch of pins, the smaller batch is not even worth talking about.
Thanks in advance and … be gentle
I stumbled across some information on the web about 8 months back talking about Gold From Escrap. Read the article and decided, “Hey, I can do that”. I already had a bunch of old towers, cords, PCI cards, printers and on and on. I understood enough to recognize two facts.
1st, I didn't know near enough to start reclaiming and refining PM's from escrap and needed to do much research. I did have some knowledge and experience working with chemicals, but not near enough
2nd, even though all the “junk” I had on hand would be a start, it wasn't near enough to make money from, serious or otherwise. I knew that to make any money I would need to find a way to access large amounts of old PC's and escrap or I would be wasting my time.
Little did I know where this new path was going to take me!
I read everything I could find online and, little by little, started to learn. Little did I know that 75% of what I was learning was false and misleading information. The authors of most of the information must be on some type of ego trip. Guess that's the beauty of the internet, if wrapped up and packaged real pretty you can fool people into believing just about anything! Well, fool me once shame on you; Fool me twice same on ME!
I found a way to get the computers and assorted electronics I needed and even found myself plunged into a new business. Buying old used electronics; some items would be refurbished and/or repaired and resold online; some items would be stripped for parts and resold online; some items would be broken down and recycled for scrap or broken down and any parts with PM potential would be separated and prepped for processing.
My quest for a source of affordable computers and assorted electronics had became a profitable little business. I get to travel around buying and transporting the electronics I purchase. Since most of the electronics have some years on them I get exposure to equipment and components I never knew existed and, for the reason just stated, much of the electronics end up broken down, the common metals and components recycled and sold for scrap and I have an ever growing stockpile of items loaded with PM's and waiting for reclaim/refine processing. That brings me to where I am now.
Before I ask for advice I want to say I have read Hoke twice and always have a .pdf copy open on my desktop so I can do a quick keyword search. First time I read it made no sense at all to me. Second time, I still walked away confused. The information in the book seemed to jump around all over the place and was not presented in what I thought was a logical order of progression. Yes, the author of the book does know her stuff, but she leaves a lot to be desired with the composition and presentation of her knowledge.
Also, the information she presented was in no way similar to anything I had found on the internet. The procedures and chemicals were slightly similar but for the most part entirely different. Every where in Hokes book when she talks of using AR to dissolve and suspend gold in solution, she stresses the point that to get the gold to drop you must and a little sulfuric acid to the solution after the gold is suspended, then boil the whole solution down to a paste like slurry and a lot of other things to get the gold to drop. Nowhere had I heard or read that information before. Even this week while searching and reading thread after thread on this forum I have yet to come across anything that says to boil AR before dropping the gold.
That being said, a few weeks back I decided that I needed to get my feet wet and try to process something. I had managed to collect 2lbs. of pins with some degree of gold on them; some fully plated, some partially plated and some with just the tips plated and figured this was as good a place as any to start. I had no idea that I had chosen the dirtiest, hardest and most time consuming material to start with. Guess we all have to mount the learning curve at some point, looks like I choose the worst place I could find to hop on board.
Took about a 1/2lb of pins and put in a small, plastic container that I could cap and shake regularly and covered with AP. A couple of weeks later I dumped the remaining 1.5lbs in a large container and covered with AP.
4 weeks later the small container had reduced in volume around 65%, happy camper I was not! Knew something was wrong but could not put my finger on it. Funny thing, there is very little credible information on the internet when it comes to pins. Almost everything I did find always talked about solid or fully plated pins and that information was sketchy and never addressed the problems I was experiencing. Started keyword searching Hoke and learned about addressing lead and tin contaminating as separate issues. Tried the different acid baths and still just could not seem to get the bulk to reduce very fast at all. Then I had a flash, why not burn the pins with a torch and get rid of a lot of the excess metal bulk that way. Nowhere had I read burning was bad, in fact what I had read seemed to indicate just the opposite.
Drained, filtered and washed the pins then dumped them in a stainless steel sheet-rock mud pan and fired up the torch. used a small mortar trowel to chop the pins up when they glowed red. Noticed some of the gold plating would melt and run together in clumps so I chopped them up also. Figured smaller particles would be easier to process. This reduced the bulk dramatically. Then I sifted all the material through a tea filter, washed in HCL and water and ran through the AP another time.
After a few days filtered, washed and decided it was time for the AC step. Wrong! I guess the pins were still loaded with base metals and very little were suspended in solution. After a week I decided they had dissolved as much as they were going to dissolve. Filtered, washed and put the remaining pins aside to address in the future. Decided to see if I could drop the gold from solution. Diluted, heated for a few hours to eliminate any excess chlorine and got out the old smb. After starting the drop I ran out of smb, no prob, it was late so I figured I'd get some more the next day and finish up. Every have one of those days that everything that could go wrong, would go wrong? Next day, I did!
Next day I picked up a bunch of different chemicals, even came across some ph down that I snatched up. Figured I'd get the smb at Lowe’s on the way home. Surprise, Lowe’s didn't carry stump-out, I would need to get that at Home Depot and that was 10 miles back the direction I had just came from What the heck, I remembered reading that smb became sodium bisulfite when added to water and I did have some ph down. I never noticed that ph down had an “a” instead of an “i” in it's name. Guess you can see where this is headed, right? Long story short, when the sb was not working I looked at the chemical component and started to wonder if I had screwed up royally.
That's when I really started to learn how valuable this forum actually is. Started searching and found a post where the poor guy had made the same error as I. Steve said all was not lost and outlined a few different ways the the gold could possibly be saved. I put the solution aside and will let you know what happens when I get back to it.
It had been a week since I had started processing the 1.5lbs of pins in the AP (did I mention that I had burned the crap out of those pins also to reduce their bulk? It was becoming apparent that there was something I was missing because at their current rate, it would be after Christmas before all the base metal was gone. Again, got back on the forum and started reading thread after thread. Then, for the first time in all the months since I had been studding and reading about recovering and refining, there it was, one of the wiser-than-me forum users said it ...you can't process magnetic pins with AP. What? Why hadn't any of the self proclaimed “experts” that did video after video on YouTube ever said that? Heck, they made processing pins seem like a walk in the park. Let me tell you, it's been anything but!
OK, it's never too late, took my pins, filtered, boiled in HLC for two hours, did multiple hot water baths and then pulled out the concentrated sulfuric acid. Covered the pins in H2O and added an equal amount of concentrated sulfuric acid to the pot and turned on the heat. Boiled the pins for 4 hours in the solution, what a difference! Cooled down and poured off the solution. Washed the pins 4 times in water. Then covered with water one more time and let set overnight. Today I put the pot back on heat and brought to a boil, filtered and repeated the wash 4 more times. Next covered pins with HCL, boiled for 1 hour, poured off solution and washed 4 times in boiling water. Covered with aged AP and placed aside for the night
When I was washing the pins after the sulfuric boil every time I washed the water went milk white. Same with the HLC, first couple of washes went milky white, the following 2 washes were sort of like skim milk with what looked like a distinct light orange solution floating on the top (maybe rust??)
Well, there it is, my shame for all to see!. I'm open to any feedback anyone can offer. Where I went wrong, what was going on and where I go now. Only concerned with the larger batch of pins, the smaller batch is not even worth talking about.
Thanks in advance and … be gentle
