A much neglected book on this forum is Loewen's, "Small Scale Refining of Jewelers Wastes." - 250 pages. I think it was written in the 70s and then re-published by Met-Chem in the 90s. I only recently bought it and thought it was excellent. Why I didn't buy it before is a mystery. And, the price is right.
http://www.lmine.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=LMS&Product_Code=17208&Category_Code=assaying
If you want a book that covers the processing of all types of jewelry scrap, in excellent detail, from soup to nuts, with lots of full page photos (mainly of the equipment he uses) and sketches, this is the book for you. The guy ran or owned a real medium sized refinery and he wants to show you around it and tell you how everything works. I saw no technical flaws in the processes. There's some things I might very well do differently but, what this guy teaches will work. Like me, he likes to do things on the cheap, but practical. Much of his equipment is homemade.
There are 10 pages on safety, 10 on sampling and assays, 56 on sweeps, 40 on gold refining, 24 on silver refining, 12 on PGMS, 24 on other refining methods, and 22 on pollution control. Tons on cyanide, aqua regia, melting, etc. He covers about every type of scrap even remotely associated with jewelry, and even some that are not. The index is good and there's a 20 page bibliography. I learned quite a few new things from this book and also saw many thought provoking concepts.
It is possible to become almost a complete (if there ever were such a thing) jewelry scrap refiner from either the Hoke or the Loewen book. However, you might learn twice as much if you have both of them. They cover the same subjects in a different manner and are very complimentary to each other. If you have both of these books along with Harold's, 4metals', Lou's, and, a handful of other member's posts on these subjects, you would know just about everything you would ever need to know about the processing of jewelry scrap.
http://www.lmine.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=LMS&Product_Code=17208&Category_Code=assaying
If you want a book that covers the processing of all types of jewelry scrap, in excellent detail, from soup to nuts, with lots of full page photos (mainly of the equipment he uses) and sketches, this is the book for you. The guy ran or owned a real medium sized refinery and he wants to show you around it and tell you how everything works. I saw no technical flaws in the processes. There's some things I might very well do differently but, what this guy teaches will work. Like me, he likes to do things on the cheap, but practical. Much of his equipment is homemade.
There are 10 pages on safety, 10 on sampling and assays, 56 on sweeps, 40 on gold refining, 24 on silver refining, 12 on PGMS, 24 on other refining methods, and 22 on pollution control. Tons on cyanide, aqua regia, melting, etc. He covers about every type of scrap even remotely associated with jewelry, and even some that are not. The index is good and there's a 20 page bibliography. I learned quite a few new things from this book and also saw many thought provoking concepts.
It is possible to become almost a complete (if there ever were such a thing) jewelry scrap refiner from either the Hoke or the Loewen book. However, you might learn twice as much if you have both of them. They cover the same subjects in a different manner and are very complimentary to each other. If you have both of these books along with Harold's, 4metals', Lou's, and, a handful of other member's posts on these subjects, you would know just about everything you would ever need to know about the processing of jewelry scrap.
