Small step for you , giant leap for me

Hello all,

After 7+ months of daily reading this forum and Hoke, I thought it was time for an acquaintance test, ( I just could not wait anymore )
First I had to get me some needed stuff, chemicals, tin, glassware, safety gear, ph papers, etc..... and that’s where the adventure started :lol:
I found : hcl: 23%, sodium hypochlorite 8%, H2O2 3%, Nitric 60%, little low on some % but doable i think.

Did not find Sodium metabisulfite, did I know that they not call it Sodium here, but Natrium , lol, but even then, I could not find it ( this in Belgium, land of beer and breweries ! ).
After contacting a GRF member from Belgium, he’s from antwerp too, I got the advice to try ferrous sulfate.

So I went to a pharmacy (drugstore?) and asked for smb or ferrous , and got a strange look , ( like : what do you need that for ? ) I explained a little and got an even stranger look :shock:
But he wanted to order it for me, the smb was much more expensive so i went with the ferrous II sulfate, ( 2 Kg bag ) Wished I ever had that much AuCl to use those 2 kg lol,
and got me 2 glass stirringrods also. (Duran beakers are for the next time).

Then, try to find some pure tin here...... same, went to 101 places, and nowhere to be found.
I bought me a small old tin cup at a garage sale, the seller had 5 , I bought 1 for 1euro ( 1.30$ ).
When I got home , i saw that there was a coin embedded in the bottom of the cup,......a Belgian 25 grams .900 silver coin... wished I had bought all of them :lol:
Made me a standard gold testsolution and made my stannous chloride, and it worked perfect (black/purple stain)

So far so good,

Now : 250 grams ( 0.5 lbs ) of cleancut fingers :
Did them Lazersteve’s way: AP, all went well, got the foils, washed them in clean hcl and left them a few days in clean hcl.

Then came the scary part, should I dissolve those verry nice looking foils ? I had to, so ... :lol: : hcl and sodium hypochlorite did the trick and got me a
verry nice clear yellow / orange solution, tested it with my stannous and yes a purple / black stain assured me that my gold was still there :lol:
I filtered the AuCl through a pre wetted filter, a few little pieces of green soldermask were left in the filter, and a verry clear liquid was the result.
Let it stand to evaporate the chloride for the night and the next day i warmed ! (did not boil!) the solution and tested with ammonia in a cap, some white smoke was seen, so heated it for another 5 minutes and did another test, no more white smoke.

So far so good

Next I made a solution from the ferrous sulfate ( 2 grams ) + distilled water and filtered it.
Now the next scary phase, i dripped the Ferrous sulfate solution in my AuCl and stirred, got a cinnamon brown(ish) solution, let it settle and after a while it cleared up and I saw a little brown powder at the bottom, yeah :lol:
I tested with stannous and got a black/purple reaction so i added some more Ferrous sulfate solution to it, stirred more and got the same brown reaction, stirred some more, let it settle and yes more brown powder, tested again with stannous, and no more black/purple reaction was seen.
Decanted the solution and was left with the brown muddy powder.

still good ( I think )

Then i did the famous Harold washes, yes famous Harold and famous washes :lol:

5 minutes “nearly boiling” in distiled water, decant, 5 minutes hcl, decant and two times more 5 minute washes with distilled water.
Tested the condensation on the watchglass that coverd the vessel while heating and got no stannous reaction.( love that testing :lol: )
Then I let it dry under low heat ( all the washes where done in a beaker in a catchpot with water in, also the gold never left the beaker after the filtration of the AuCl ).

And that resulted in some verry nice light brown powder. weight : +1 gram
plan to save this goldpowder untill I get some more, before the second refining and melting!

Now I wanted to thank all of the members (even the ones that made a mess of everything they did, because that made me read more ! :lol:

But specially : Lazersteve, Butcher, Geo, Harold,
Patnor (the chips from the ram wil be next and ill try it your way !
“indeeditdoes” ( blame him and his youtube vids for me beeing here :lol:
9kuuby9 ( the verry friendly GRF member from Antwerp ! )
and many others.....

for your patience and sharing your knowledge with all us newbies, (even the ones that dont say “Hello” in their first post.)
Probably I will need some help in the future , but I will try to avoid it !!

Tried to keep it short lol, and tried to use the correct names and spelling for everything,
I added 1 picture of the result, all the others not (my ap, AuCl, precitipation,...) I think you have seen enough of them...

Thank you again and goodnight.

Pat

I'm really impressed, the picture speaks for itself!

A successful beginning for a successful adventure 8)

Very nice Pat !

Congratulations!

You seem to have made every thing correct, especially the study hard before starting! Well done!

You never mentioned it but I guess that you put your decanted barren liquid in a stock pot? That is a god way to not worry about getting all the gold at once. I pulled 1 gram of gold from my stock pot after processing 40 grams (20 small batches) of gold. 8)

Just as you know, after the first drop you are hooked on this hobby. :mrgreen:

Göran

Nice post, way to set an example.

Great job! From here on out, this is the thread that I will reference when some newbie wants to know how to get the gold! I'll tell them, "You want to get great looking gold and do it right the first time? Follow this example!!"

very nice results.

and so it begins. :twisted:

Very nice post , and congratulations with your first gold

scm

Hi Guys,

Thank you 9kuuby9, and thanks again for the present 8)
Thank you Palladium, your name should be on my list for people making this possible !!
Thank you Göran, and yes all the liquids are in my stockpot, I'll check after doing 40 grams ... :lol: and yes I'am hooked already :lol:
Thank you Smack, hope it helps someone in the future.
Thank you Andy, thats an honor (honour?) !! :shock:
Thank you Geo, yes that was the beginning , now more reading and searching for stuff to proces.
Thank you Scm, first gold , I still can't believe it :lol:

All this wasn't possible without you guys ( And at least one lady !! , i think you know who i mean) and this fantastic forum !!

Pat

8) Do not sell that first button, it is worth more than its weight in gold :mrgreen:

Very nice
Job well done

Thank you Joem,

I am trying to get some money on my new paypall acount , so I can buy that
"GRF Limited Cover Edition of the Gold Recovery Guide" from you :lol:

btw , I just bought my first 5 dollar .9999 silver Maple leaf (Verry nice looking coin!)
(I wanted to invest the money I got from selling a cpu that was in a computer i got for free)
so , thats my 2nd profit I got from computer scrap (1st was that gold from my post ! ) 8)
Take care

Pat

while all the money is flying around, remember the forum runs on and needs our donations. :mrgreen:

public service announcement is over now, thank you.

I will not forget the forum Geo , all the info, knowledge here is invaluable, worth a donation, to keep it running !!

Pat