# Big thanks to everyone that has ever posted!



## CuSEESafe (Sep 8, 2018)

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that has ever posted on this forum.

I originally started looking through information on this site in regard to a project related to work that never developed. 

However, by the time I realized that the project at work was not going to develop I had become fascinated with the processes being described on the forum, especially in regard to silver plated scrap.

I have always wanted to understand the inner metallic bonding process better that forms when copper is electroplated... it was my belief when I first started reading the posts on here about attempts to recover silver from plated copper that a large part of the failures come from the metallic bonds that start forming soon after copper has been plated. I am still exploring this theory... but have gained so much knowledge over the last year that I need to express my gratitude. 

I have probably spent over 400-500 hours just reading, rereading, and researching online on my own since I first joined last year. This site has been a tremendous asset. 

For all the times anyone has ever said, "perform a search that information is already on this forum?"... well they were not lying...

I have been experimenting with silver plate along the way. I have had failures in trying to achieve what I want... a large part due to just learning the basics. 

Today however I believe I had my first sucess... I believe I obtained silver chloride, washed it, and converted it to silver metal... i say believe because in my excitement i forgot/chose not to perform basic tests to see if it was... but I believe it should be... 

I will continue to explore and learn, but want to say once again thank you!


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Sep 8, 2018)

Well, I don't know if any of my posts helped, but it's gratifying to hear that what we try to do here is appreciated! Best of luck in all your pursuits!

Dave


----------



## CuSEESafe (Sep 8, 2018)

Your posts have definitely helped. I can't name a specific one right at the moment as everyday I had a new question and performed new searches... but I do recognize your user name as someone respected on the forum and so you and others like you that are respected as having a lot of knowledge I put more trust in to what was being conveyed.

I was serious though when I said "everyone"... even the people that made posts and were later banned taught me the etiquette of this forum.


----------



## PanningOut (May 26, 2019)

I would also like to thank everyone. I have been studying for five months on escrap recycling. I have finally got my first button of gold. My only claim is I have started. I made most of the mistakes on this forum. I started with C. M. Hoke’s book. Then videos. After I found this forum I realized that videos had a lot of missing information. Please no questions yet on numbers. I made too many mistakes, and “lost my gold” so many times the numbers don’t mean much at this moment. My main reason to post is to thank each and everyone. 

I am going to try to attach a picture of the button. -Sorry I just realized the picture isn’t good. The weight should have been 1.88 grams. 



Again thank you. 
Milton


----------



## anachronism (May 26, 2019)

Good luck lads.

It's certainly an amazing journey. 

Jon


----------



## Shark (May 26, 2019)

PanningOut said:


> -Sorry I just realized the picture isn’t good. The weight should have been 1.88 grams.
> 
> 
> Again thank you.
> Milton



But it's gold, :G .

We can over look a few mistakes when starting out. :lol: And it will be better looking and easier to get there next time.

And Jon is right, the journey is absolutely amazing. I really wish I had got into this years ago.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (May 26, 2019)

Any gold is good gold!

Dave


----------



## g_axelsson (Jun 12, 2019)

10 years since I joined the forum and I still make mistakes. Just last week I lost track of my gold and had to dig up 25 grams of gold from a trash bag. I was lucky to realize my mistake in time before the trash was thrown away. :mrgreen: 

Welcome to the forum and I wish you good luck producing a lot of golden buttons.

Göran


----------



## anachronism (Jun 12, 2019)

g_axelsson said:


> 10 years since I joined the forum and I still make mistakes. Just last week I lost track of my gold and had to dig up 25 grams of gold from a trash bag. *I was lucky to realize my mistake in time before the trash was thrown away.* :mrgreen:
> 
> Welcome to the forum and I wish you good luck producing a lot of golden buttons.
> 
> Göran



Extremely lucky..... :roll: :roll: :roll:


----------



## kurtak (Jun 12, 2019)

anachronism said:


> g_axelsson said:
> 
> 
> > 10 years since I joined the forum and I still make mistakes. Just last week I lost track of my gold and had to dig up 25 grams of gold from a trash bag. *I was lucky to realize my mistake in time before the trash was thrown away.* :mrgreen:
> ...



Well - being as how I also happened to be there - I can say it was a "true recovery" process :lol: :wink: :mrgreen: 

25 grams :shock: 8) 

Being as how I had to leave before the recovery was completed & knowing what we had to go through for the recovery I am impressed - I was expecting a "bit" less then that :G 

Kurt


----------



## g_axelsson (Jun 12, 2019)

I will do a write up of that recovery some day, I'm still not sure about what happened to create that clay. I've been discussing it with a chemist friend and I might be able to have another contact running it in an x-ray powder camera. That could answer the question of what it's made of.

The recovery was a true team effort and a great learning experience.  

Göran


----------



## kurtak (Jun 13, 2019)

g_axelsson said:


> I will do a write up of that recovery some day,



Goran

I do not think that is a good idea :!: 

I don't think that is a good idea for a number of reasons

1) -First & foremost is the fact that we were working with a cyanide leach solution

2) - we had in our group 3 VERY experienced members (Deano, Nick, & Jon) with a VAST knowledge in working with CN

3) - we were working in a setting of a complete lab - in other words proper fume control & proper safety equipment 

4) - we worked WAY outside the box of normal/general practices for the recovery of gold from CN solutions - or as Jon said - we broke ALL the rules for working with CN & methods normally discussed on the forum

Working with CN - under normal conditions in & of it's self is a risky business :!: 

Doing what we did is "flat out" dangerous :!: 

The FACT is - the VAST majority of members here are at best "back yard" refiners lacking in experience, knowledge & proper equipment --- without those things it is my opinion that discussing what we did would put members at risk - GREAT risk - risk of death


We got away with it ONLY because we had "on hand" a VAST amount of experience, knowledge & proper equipment --- & as you say - it took a team effort --- I don't think we could have pulled it off had we not all been stand there to work out the problems we ran into

Let me put it this way - I would NOT have wanted to work this out through a discussion on the forum & I don't thinks this could be posted in enough detail & with enough info to come even close to being safe for the average member - it is my opinion that someone - in their back yard would try this & it could/would result in the last time of our (or anyone) ever hearing from them again

Being as I was there - that is my opinion that this method we worked on should not ever be discussed - & I believe at least Nick would agree with me 

Kurt


----------



## anachronism (Jun 13, 2019)

kurtak said:


> anachronism said:
> 
> 
> > g_axelsson said:
> ...



Goran: Can't work out where the gold is- all I have is a clean solution and a bunch of white powder that I filtered off. 
Jon and Kurt: Have you tested the white powder? 
Goran: It's white powder are you guys mad? 8) 8) 
Jon and Kurt: Well you know the old rule, you don't lose your gold unless you throw it away- oh where IS the white powder?
Goran: In the bin.

*Rustling around as Goran gets a sample, puts it in a plastic bag and shoots it with the xrf, followed by cursing and swearing when the xrf shows the white powder at 64% gold........*

Goran: £%"^^&^ 
Jon and Kurt: *clink our beer bottles together and smile*


----------



## niks neims (Jun 13, 2019)

sounds like a fun get-together 

CN+beer.... :mrgreen:


----------



## anachronism (Jun 13, 2019)

niks neims said:


> sounds like a fun get-together
> 
> CN+beer.... :mrgreen:



Not in the same space Nik haha


----------



## g_axelsson (Jun 13, 2019)

Haha, maybe not exactly as I remember it, but close enough for a drama documentary.
When I told you about the white filter cake that I threw in the trash I got that sinking feeling in my stomach. I think we all realized it about the same time.

I really like Jon's XRF gun. How would you else test a solid like this?



... and the reading.



Since half of the story is out I might just continue it...

One important safety detail. While working with cyanide we had a monitor like this that would warn us if the cyanide level in the air would get too high.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/BW-GasAlert-Extreme-Hydrogen-Cyanide-HCN-Monitor-GAXT-Z-DL/173777612544
I looked at it quite often the first day. :lol: 

Better than a cyanide detector was working with Nick and Dean, if they didn't look nervous I knew there were no danger doing what I was doing. Without them overlooking my work I never felt in danger. Except for washing the gold off the pins I either worked in a fume hood or outside with the wind blowing from the side.

It all started out perfectly, the gold washed off my pins, I ran some samples of the liquid in Jon's AA (Atomic Absorption Spectrometer), so I knew after the first batch of pins (old IBM stuff from late 1960) that I had about 18 grams in solution from 800 grams of pins... 20 gram per kilo is good pins but it took a long time to dissolve the gold, about an hour. The second batch took just a couple of minutes before all the pins were stripped. Third batch were more resisting again but finally most of the gold were in solution.

Before we could zinc the gold out we either had to destroy all the oxygen or all the cyanide. This was done outside and resulted in an acidic liquid with a white precipitate in the bucket. When I asked Dean about it he told me it was gypsum and also that "A slight co-precipitation of gold and copper might occur."

Since Dean left the following morning I had to deal with the bucket myself. I filtered off the gypsum and threw it away, zinced the liquid and poured off the barren solution (tested with AA). The solids were washed with HCl and there were just a bit of dark powder on the bottom. Aqua regia, stannous gave a very weak test, decided to add SMB anyhow... and nothing happened. At this point I felt a slight disappointment.

This was where someone suggested a beer and brainstorming away from the lab. Good idea!

What happened during the beer you already know.

Then Kurt assisted me (ie hands me a beaker and watches me rummage through the garbage bag) in recovering most of the filter cake.

Ok, first step, boiling HCl, nothing happens. After a while we add some nitric and everything dissolves in the boiling aqua regia... but still a weak stannous test. The AA on the other hand thinks it is 20 grams per liter. We took a break for dinner and left the beaker boiling. After dinner the stannous test goes black. Finally some gold that I can get out. Time for some brainstorming again. We decided to cement out the gold with copper, this wouldn't add anything new to the solution and was seen as the safest option.

... it didn't work as expected. It created a gray clay-like substance that locked the gold in. Boiling water or HCl did nothing to it. After hours of work (mostly by Nick) I gave up. Added nitric and everything dissolved again.

New experiments, added pregnant solution to three beakers and SMB, ascorbic acid and copperas were used to see which were working the best. It seemed like copperas worked best but still made a bit of a mess, SMB created the same mess as before and ascorbic made a yellow mess. I decided to drop the gold with copperas.

The ascorbic drop had something that behaved as gold while looking like clay. A drop of nitric actually cleaned it up quite well but dissolved some gold too. I washed it off into the copperas drop. Mechanical beating the yellow mess while washing it with boiling hot water slowly gave me something resembling gold powder. I gave the copperas drop the same treatment and finally had two beakers with dirty powder drying.

Final tally, 3.5 g dropped with ascorbic acid and 26 g dropped with copperas. It's really ugly gold powder but it got the weight. The third vial with dark brown powder is from another batch.


From left to right :
- 2.7g from 90 g of pins. Used aqua regia for that. Still quite a lot of solids in the filter and it was positive for both gold and rhodium so I dried the filter and brought back home.
- 3.5g extracted from my mess, dropped with ascorbic acid.
- 26g extracted from my mess, dropped with copperas.
I will incinerate or melt the powder and re-refine it. That should take care of the mess.

... on the way home I got stopped at every security checkpoint since the gold is totally opaque to the x-ray machines used at the airport. :mrgreen: 

I probably lost a bit of gold, but I don't care. In the end the experience of meeting all the guys from the forum, exchanging ideas and watching people recover gold in a commercial scale was worth so much more.

Göran


----------



## Johnny5 (Jun 13, 2019)

g_axelsson said:


> 10 years since I joined the forum and I still make mistakes. Just last week I lost track of my gold and had to dig up 25 grams of gold from a trash bag. I was lucky to realize my mistake in time before the trash was thrown away. :mrgreen:
> 
> Welcome to the forum and I wish you good luck producing a lot of golden buttons.
> 
> Göran



Goran,
I remember when you joined. We've all been through so much since then. Roughly 10 years ago I sold approximately 1/4oz. of AU that had been melted with 50 lbs of copper. If I remember correctly I sold it for $3.00 per pound. But that wasn't worth nearly what you're was.

I appreciate so many people, especially from the old days. There are too few members still here from the early days. We've lost a lot of really good members and moderators over the years. I miss them, and miss the way the forum used to be. 
There are not enough hours in the day, to express my gratitude to members like you, and others that helped make the forum flourish from the beginning. I'm also grateful I could be a part of that.


----------



## nickvc (Jun 13, 2019)

In reply to Kurt I agree I don’t and never will feel happy discussing what I do so casually or as Jon says gung-ho, I have worked with virtually all the nasties in this business and have come to understand their dangers and their benefits but you have to know the risks and understand when you mess up and what to do. While I do hate sulphuric and lye with a passion they shouldn’t kill you but with Kcn there are no second chances, I have also worked with hydrofluoric which is also very unpleasant and again would not suggest anyone use it without a proper lab and safety gear.

It was great to meet the guys from the forum and made for a pleasant and entertaining few days I just hope I didn’t scare them too much :shock:


----------



## patnor1011 (Jun 13, 2019)

It is always a pleasure to see you working Nick. And while I do hope I am not spilling some secret information I must add that besides recovery and refining there was another thing I enjoyed very much..... It was the curry you made for all of us. :mrgreen:


----------



## nickvc (Jun 13, 2019)

Pat it’s just another chemical mix which all cooking is, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t which is very like recovery of PMs, it’s understanding what works and what doesn’t.
I must admit I enjoy cooking it’s good to see others eating what you created 8)


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Jun 13, 2019)

nickvc said:


> I must admit I enjoy cooking it’s good to see others eating what you created 8)


One of my great pleasures in life!

Dave


----------



## g_axelsson (Jun 14, 2019)

nickvc said:


> In reply to Kurt I agree I don’t and never will feel happy discussing what I do so casually or as Jon says gung-ho, I have worked with virtually all the nasties in this business and have come to understand their dangers and their benefits but you have to know the risks and understand when you mess up and what to do. While I do hate sulphuric and lye with a passion they shouldn’t kill you but with Kcn there are no second chances, I have also worked with hydrofluoric which is also very unpleasant and again would not suggest anyone use it without a proper lab and safety gear.
> 
> It was great to meet the guys from the forum and made for a pleasant and entertaining few days I just hope I didn’t scare them too much :shock:


Nick, I never felt unsafe in your presence and I really loved your gung-ho style of refining. It clearly showed that you knew what you were doing. Not even when you tapped me on the shoulder and told me to "Better step out of the lab for a while." You have given me a new way of looking at refining.

But even after spending a week with you, I still can't explain exactly how you know what to do in each situation. What you know is called experience and that is something you can't teach. I have seen enough to bring some new ideas into my refining, but to get to the point to teach other I need the experience from years of really working with it. And even then I think this is something you need to see for your self, it's not possible to teach safely on a forum since you don't know the proficiency of the person reading the text.

And as you say, a lot of things we do is dangerous but cyanide is the one chemical that if you make a mistake it might be your last one. Lethal dose is about 1/3 of a gram and some people can't smell it when it's in the air. I can't smell it.
I've been interested in cyanide long before I joined the forum but never tried it. I'm glad I waited for this occasion.

One of the nice memories from this trip was the food. From your great curry to the Hungarian goulash Patrick made (rabbits not included). Even the Yorkshire pudding with a lot of gravy.  
Not forgetting the rib-eye that Jon fried, that was perfectly done, just as I liked it.

Göran


----------



## nickvc (Jun 14, 2019)

Göran the real trick with using dangerous chemicals or mixes thereof is to know when things go wrong and what to do and why, I’m not a chemist, I failed miserably at the exams as a kid, but I do know what the real outcome of certain combinations are or can be, that can’t be taught on a forum it has to be seen and learnt.
We messed with some seriously dangerous mixes but with full knowledge of the outcome, I won’t elaborate on all we did as I don’t want others thinking it’s just chuck a few bits in of this and a few of that and all’s fine , it’s not that simple and I refuse to put others at risk using some of the things I take for granted.
As stated before even some of the more benign chemicals we use can be highly toxic and dangerous to those unaware of what they are doing, your kitchen cleaning cupboard can be deadly with bad luck or misguided intent, as always safety first....gold or other values a poor second 8)


----------



## g_axelsson (Jun 15, 2019)

Nick, I totally agree with you.

Göran


----------

