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Beginner: Wanting Pins for Practice

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JackWaggons

Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2013
Messages
20
Hey guys! I have been watching and reading for a long time now. I am almost through my first read of Hoke. I think I will have to read it again. Anyways, I am ready to start trying some small batches and practicing what i have been learning. If anyone has any amounts of pins dirty or clean around 100g for sale contact me and we will haggle for something reasonable for both sides. I am not looking at making money on this first try however I don't want to lose either. I am sick of people sniping my ebay bids for more than the gold cost. Please help!
 
Jack,
I understand what you mean, you want to give it a try but 100g is really very small amount. If you recover about 1g from that it has to be very high grade material, something military or telecom grade. Pins from computer pcb will yield most likely about 0.25-0.5g from 100g of material.
 
Jack as I posted to AUH-R earlier you need to source your materials, that is the hard part for many members and it's getting harder with the metal prices and the need for income from any source for many. Its almost pointless setting up to refine if you can't find anything to refine that's your dilemma, it's much easier for the members to help if the one asking for help has material which we have processed before or can advise on because we reconize it.
I think you need to start looking around for material, as I suggested to AUH-R talk to everyone, pound the streets, look for repair shops, scrap yards and read the posts on sources of values here on the forum, hit the phone book look for anyone that may have value bearing scrap, whether it's gold, silver or platinum group metals, do Internet searches for possible sources in your area but mainly don't give up its out there somewhere you just have to find it.
 
I usually get a few computers when I call up the local computer repair shops. Every now and then I will give them a call and ask if they have any old, broken, or unwanted computers. Usually it pays off, and I get a few. Also, you can post on Craigslist. I have picked up some on there too. That will give you some material to start out with.
 
Got a call this morning asking how much I pay, I said it depends on what it is, he said well, I've got 6 or 7 printers (laughing inside) I said I pay nothing for them and that's if you bring them to me. He said he would keep me in mind for future reference. Try putting a add in the paper.
 
Awesome advice guys! It is hard to find a source of materials. I will give all of those options a try. I will continue to lurk and read Hoke :p
 
Hey thanks Lazer! I have been saving up the cash to buy your first video. I really appreciate your knowledge and experience. I have been reading this forum for the past several weeks and have learned to look for your posts. I called some of the computer shops in town and I have some offering me to pick some stuff up for free. Hopefully it is stuff worth scrapping. Learning is slow but steady. Looking into some lab supplies and some chemicals for some trial runs of HCL+CL solutions. Sometimes reading is not enough gotta get the hands dirty.
 
Jack,

PM me with an offer of something you have of value and we will make a deal. I love to barter!

Steve
 
Got an email today from a local store offering me some old computer parts for free. Steve I am going to try to acquire stuff for free once I get a large enough amount I will post pics. I have a bag of pins collected including some larger plated blocks from old gps antenna. I work at an aircraft maintenance shop and I scrap a lot of old broken electronics. Lots of them have gold connectors and pins. I ended up with a PCB board from a GPS antenna with a solid plated side. The plating is really thick thinking 80 microinches but its only 1" square so I'm thinking about 1$ worth of gold haha. Gotta start somewhere! Oh! Steve what are your thoughts on HCL+CL to learn from. It is safer than a true AR and cheaper!

Thanks for the advice and offers Steve!
 
Jack,

HCl-Cl is a good reagent for working with finely divided gold and foils. It should not be used for dissolving base metals or fused/alloyed gold. Your recovery and refining toolbox should have many reagents in it, each has a specific function depending on the material being processed. It's very easy to get heavy handed with the bleach so take it slow, gently heat, and stir, stir stir.

Steve
 
At least for me here in Montnana I have found its hard to get computers for free. I have also noticed that the compitition is getting tough so I decided to pay people for the computers knocking the people trying to get the for free out and also keeping the loyalty of my customers at the same time. I have been doing this for my 3rd weekend and buy posting on CL and making calls to schools businesses I have paid no more than 250.00 and have made more than 3x that in profit while keeping the fingers for recovery and I'm doing this in my spare time. Don't be afraid to pay people it keeps them coming back and they get your name out. Heck just last weekend I got 70 pent 2s and 9 power edge servers for 35.00 just by calling a school. If you work hard and put thought and effort in to it will pay off.
 
So as I understand Steve. If I want to do a batch a pins or foiled boards HCL+CL is a good idea. However if I am "re refining" my gold drops from the before mentioned pins I would wanna do a true AR? Or is an ammonia wash after the HCL+CL good enough. I am trying to translate Hoke into what I wanna do. Hoping I am making sense.

Jack
 
Jack,

'Foils and finely divided gold powder' means the resulting gold material you get from a dirty gold precipitation, moist black powder from the sulfuric stripping cell, or gold recovered from the stock pot via copper ( all finely divided gold) and thin foils of gold recovered by removing the base metals from scrap first using diluted nitric acid or AP.

HCl-Cl is not a good choice for dissolving gold when the base metals are still present or the gold is fused into a BB, cornflakes, or buttons. As a rule of thumb: If your gold has not been recovered ( meaning all base metals removed), do not use HCl-Cl.

Steve
 
JackWaggons said:
Thanks! Haha I will shut up and read more now :lol:


Jack don't worry it will start to make sense, I think your in the same position as I am when the real clever members start talking about refining PGMs :oops: and I have been involved in refining for over thirty years :shock:
I'm starting to understand better but I'm real pleased I don't have to go for the high purity some want to achieve and my admiration for Lou, lazersteve and anyone else who does is real.
 
Jack,

I hope my reply did not come off snooty or harsh, it was not meant to be such. I was just trying to be a clear as possible in my explanation.

Steve
 
Thanks for the encouragement nick! Steve, I did not think you came off snooty or harsh . I work as an aircraft mechanic and being knowledgeable in my field means I get asked the same dumb questions over and over. I know it gets old nd that is why I said I will shut up and read more. Ha Ha! I thank you for your patience! I downloaded your poorman's AR recipe the other day and I was the one who bought that 5gs of tin off you the other day. I am no where near ready to work with this stuff yet. But, collecting the stuff makes me feel productive. I still have more gold scrap to collect. Trying the free/CL offers first. I like doing stuff on my own.

Jack
 
Ok so I finally understand this. I am going to wanna do an AR to recover gold when it is mixed with other metals (pins Cpus PCBs ect) right? HCL+CL is only used to process and refine foils or the gold from my AR runs. Please confirm this for my brain so it can stop hurting. I am just curious how each of the processes are applied E-Scrapping.

Jack
 
Aqua regia or HCl/bleach do similar things, they both dissolve gold, you do not want base metals in the mix when you use either.

Aqua regia will dissolve thick pieces of gold metal easily, HCl bleach will have trouble with thicker metal, for this reason HCl/bleach is best used with foils or powders or fine gold.

The aqua regia can be hard to deal with especially for beginners, limiting nitric usage is very important for good results, the excess nitric acid will need to be eliminated before precipitating gold, if nitric is not consumed in the reaction this can be time consuming and difficult to do without having a boil-over, or getting the job done, can be a long and difficult process for the novice refiner.

HCl/bleach is easier to eliminate the chlorine to precipitate gold. Sometimes just letting it sit in the sun a few hours will do the job, other times just heating the solution is needed.

Note both of these work best the cleaner your gold is, the better you eliminate base metals like copper the better your results.


You need to remove copper and base metals before dissolving the gold, there are several processes depending on your material to do this like using nitric acid, or the other methods like by using the copper II chloride leach also called Acid Peroxide or AP method.

Keep reading, it is very confusing at first, but soon things will become more clear.
 
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