# Ante Up, Gold Diggers!



## lazersteve (Feb 28, 2007)

Okay guys lets talk gold! 

I'm curious what processes the members of this forum are using to 'get the gold out'. How about a quick blurb from each of you on your favorite recovery technique, how long you've been at it, and what have you produced if anything?

I'll go first:

1) My perferred method is an acid peroxide mix for fingers and reverse electroplating for plated items. Both processes are safe enough to do indoors and give excellent yields.

2) I've been recovering gold for just less than 2 years.

3) I've recovered just shy of 330 grams of 23kt + gold.

Okay, who's next?

Steve


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## Noxx (Feb 28, 2007)

The admin is the next.  
I always used the Aqua Regia refining method.
Me too for less than 2 year.
And I've recovered about 50 grams of pure gold so Steve, don't complain about your «little» 330 grams wich worth about 7000$ :wink:


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## jmelson (Feb 28, 2007)

lazersteve said:


> 3) I've recovered just shy of 330 grams of 23kt + gold.


Steve,

can you tell us about how much scrap you needed to process to get that much gold out? I attempted to determine the gold content by weighing samples before and after treatment with the Techni-Strip Au, and was surprised by the weight on some of the card edges. I know some of these from the mid-1960's had heavy gold on them. I recorded weight loss of up to several hundred mg of gold from a single piece of card edge. Harold later told me that there must have been a lot of copper removed at the same time by the solution. I'm still not convinced. I suppose I could scrape the gold off very carefully and weigh that to find out.. I also know that the gold thickness on these card edges varies greatly, so weighing a few samples doesn't extrapolate to a whole batch. Some of the recent card edges will have the gold strip off in a minute or so, that old stuff from the 60's can take 30 minutes to strip.

Anyway, I've run tens of pounds of card edges and some other connector pins through the process, and have only a disappointing 10 grams or so to show for it. I'm trying to decide if I'm doing something wrong, or if that is really all the gold present.

[update 3/2/07 -- I'm up to 13 g now, and there is still more gold in the old solutions that I thought were barren. So, I am going to try precipitating again.]

Thanks,


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## Harold_V (Mar 1, 2007)

jmelson said:


> lazersteve said:
> 
> 
> > 3) I've recovered just shy of 330 grams of 23kt + gold.
> ...



It would be dead easy to make a determination of the amount of gold you're dealing with on those fingers if you're willing to change how you extract. Stripping by cyanide on copper based alloys is a tough job---even with buffered stripping solutions and a nickel barrier. 

There's no better way to strip such alloys than with a sulfuric acid electrolytic cell, but even that isn't the solution because anything buried by solder is left behind. The single best way to process this stuff is to incinerate, then follow up with nitric acid. I dealt with it by not running electronic scrap once I was well established. It's clearly too much work for the small amount of gold involved. 

In the case of the fingers, if they can be mechanically stripped from the cards, even if there's only a few of them, and you have an analytical balance, after incinerating to eliminate non-metallic substances, weigh the remains, then process with nitric. That should put everything into solution except for the gold, which can then be weighed after drying well. Don't assume that it would be pure-----it won't be-----but it will be of high quality. 

Harold


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## lazersteve (Mar 1, 2007)

jmelson,

You should make a bottle of gold detecting solution to find your missing gold (if any). Just heat some tin metal in HCL when it begins to boil a few minutes there you have it. It does not keep very well so make small batches and use it when needed. Just put a drop of the liquid you think has gold in it on a filter and put a drop of the indicating solution on top. If it turns purple to black there is gold in the liquid. The darker the color change the more gold present. 

Steve


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## gb10101 (Mar 1, 2007)

Well, it's my turn now....

1- I am using an electrolytic cell to process at this time...

2- This is very new to me, having only been at it for a couple of weeks thus far.


3- My total recovered so far is a whopping 4+ grams...

The process seems to work well, but my greatest challenges have been in the final step which involves molten Borax in a crucible dish. The learning curve has been steep as I believe I missed much of gold in my first batches, but as time allows the net seems to be improving.

I sure hope a newbie to the processes such as myself is welcome here knowing that the experience level of the others is much greater.

Gary


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## lazersteve (Mar 1, 2007)

Fear not gb, 

We were all newbies at one point or another. Everyone here can benefit from the groups knowledge. We all have a different perspective and that can be a most powerful tool. 

Here's a cross section of various items I've stripped in my cell. I've done numerous other item as well.







Steve


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## PRECIOUS METALS (Mar 1, 2007)

HEY EVERYBODY I JUST STARTED REFINING ,I LOST ABOUT 1000 BUCKS UNTILL I FINALLY LEARNED.DID MY FIRST BACTH THANKS TO MY FREIND STEVE THAT LIVES IN FLORIDA ,HELPING ME AND SHOWING ME THE WAY/

GOT MY FIRST NUGGET OG 1 GRAM FROM A 1 POUND TEST BACTH OF FINGERS AND PINS

HERES SOME PICS

CANT UPDATE PIC SORRY[/img]


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## gb10101 (Mar 1, 2007)

Thanks Steve,

From a newbie's perspective there is a lot to learn... However, to find a forum such as this is supurb, the synergetic approach so to speak. 

Thanks again,

Gary


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## Noxx (Mar 1, 2007)

Thanks to you to be part of this growing community !

Precious metals, how did you lose 1000$ in learning ? You did one big gold batch at the beggining and you lost everything ? :roll:


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## PRECIOUS METALS (Mar 1, 2007)

YES AND FLUSHED IT DOWN THE TOILET SORRY DIDNT KNOW 

ANY BODY KNOWS ANY GARANTTE WAY TO REFINE BOARD


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## PRECIOUS METALS (Mar 2, 2007)

well guys i got gold fever ,got my first nugget ,now i cant stop refining
aqua regia works well cant complain ,there different ways im learning
at the bigginning i mixed cpu pins and boards ,wow big mistake
guys dont mix your products.

the last to bacthes i get gold wow im super happy finally i got it
i use borax alone works great i use mapp gas with oxygen
and replace the mapp gas bottle when it runs out mapp gas is a cleaner gas,

i added a larger oxygen tank ,the oxygen that comes with mapp gas runs out to fast ,your loose your butt buying them avery 10 min


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## lazersteve (Mar 2, 2007)

PM, 

I feel your pain,

When I first started out I had the same problem, that Lowes O2 is expensive and fast burning! I invested $400 in an Oxy/Act rig. I use small lab cylinders now. The refills cost $8-10 per bottle and last for a very long time.

Steve


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## PRECIOUS METALS (Mar 2, 2007)

steve i got a kerr melter i melt gold with it it goes to 1140 c but i loose a little gold when i use it ,do i use it to high and im burning the gold ,

would you know about this,

im using mapp gas to melt all my nuggets when i get alot i put it in the kerr and make a brick


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## jmelson (Mar 2, 2007)

PRECIOUS METALS said:


> YES AND FLUSHED IT DOWN THE TOILET SORRY DIDNT KNOW
> 
> ANY BODY KNOWS ANY GARANTTE WAY TO REFINE BOARD


Ouch! I knew this was a possible problem, and started with very small batches.
I am still having some problems, too. But, I have found out my supposedly depleted solutions still have gold in them. If you don't have any other way to check (like with gold test strips, etc.) you can always boil a small sample of the solution away until it is muck, then put in a crucible and burn it. If you get a glod nugget at the bottom, then you didn't get all the gold out yet!

Harold says "Don't throw away your solutions until you KNOW there is nothing left in there of value!" I'm paraphrasing him, but that was roughly what he told me 18 months ago or so.

I'm using a cyanide process, so what I'm doing may not connect with the aqua regia process too closely. But, that "nugget" above is sure a good one.


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## jmelson (Mar 2, 2007)

lazersteve said:


> Here's a cross section of various items I've stripped in my cell. I've done numerous other item as well.
> 
> http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/9074/electrolyticbeforenaftepk7.jpg
> 
> Steve


Wow, that's impressive. That looks a lot like what I get when I use the cyanide process to strip the gold off. Most stuff comes out shiny nickel. I do have some board edges that don't have the nickel barrier layer, and they come out black. Harold told me that the gold is precipitating back onto the bare copper. So, I have been keeping those pieces that turned black, to see what I can do with them, later. Now that I have determined I'm not getting all the gold out of my solutions with my electrochemical cell, I am going to try raising the pH and precipitating again with zinc flour, and see if I can get some more gold to come out. I got some pH test strips so I can put the pH up to 12, which seems to be something I missed before.


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## Noxx (Mar 2, 2007)

It's strange because with the Aqua Regia technique, you must neutralise the acid before precipitation and in your, you must higher the ph.


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## lazersteve (Mar 2, 2007)

PM,

I've never had the luxury of a Kerr Melter, but maybe the weight that you are loosing is not gold, but some other volatile substance that is in your gold. If your gold is clean going in then maybe the lining of the melter is asorbing it. The melting point of pure gold is 1064.43 C.

Steve


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## jmelson (Mar 3, 2007)

Harold_V said:


> There's no better way to strip such alloys than with a sulfuric acid electrolytic cell, but even that isn't the solution because anything buried by solder is left behind. The single best way to process this stuff is to incinerate, then follow up with nitric acid.


Arrghhh! My family bugs me about the smell of hot borax and zinc. I'd have the police out here if I tried to burn 50 Lbs of card edges! That fiberglass resin REALLY stinks, I know, I have smelled it at scrap yards.

Now, I could peel all the fingers off the card edges and burn that, just for an assay of the gold content. But, I already have a pretty good idea, now, of the gold content. I am still tinkering with the precipitation of my cyanide solution.

But, when lazersteve gives us a bit more info on his electrolytic cell system, I think I am definitely going to try that on the all-metal scrap, such as connector pins. it seems like it is a more direct system for the extraction.

Thanks,


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## PRECIOUS METALS (Mar 3, 2007)

YEA I GOT THE MELTER ON EBAY FOR 375 BUCKS HOLDS 100 GRAMS

YEA GOT LUCKY


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## NobleMetalsRecovery (Mar 7, 2007)

You mention using hydrogen peroxide and acid for fingers. I have used a hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid mix with fairly good results. Is this like what you use? What ratio would you suggest trying?


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## Noxx (Mar 7, 2007)

The Hydrogen Peroxyde technique discussed here is H2O2 + HCl.
What does sulfuric acid will change ?


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## lazersteve (Mar 7, 2007)

The main differences are the ratios and the by products. The ratios are determined from the atomic weights of the acid in question relative to the atomic weight of peroxide. The by products produced will be sulfates (*SO4) as opposed to chlorides (*Cl) . I use HCL.

Steve


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## NobleMetalsRecovery (Mar 7, 2007)

The formula I'm familiar with that uses hydrogen peroxide is as follows: 3% hydrogen peroxide, and common muriatic acid. The ratio is 2 ot 1. Two parts peroxide, and one part HCL. Does this sound right?


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## lazersteve (Mar 7, 2007)

I use various ratios depending on the objective at hand. The mixture ratio is the tool to attack the gold or base metal. There are different ratios for each.

I will cover this topic in depth in upcoming tutuorials.

Steve


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## tarvus (Mar 27, 2007)

lazersteve said:


> Okay guys lets talk gold!
> 
> I'm curious what processes the members of this forum are using to 'get the gold out'. How about a quick blurb from each of you on your favorite recovery technique, how long you've been at it, and what have you produced if anything?



I've been recovering and refining gold since October 2006 (about 5 months now). My preferred method is aqua regia ( I use potassium nitrate and HCL). I have also used reverse electroplating for plated items. I have also used nitric acid on plated stuff to dissolve base metals then recovered the plating and refined it using aqua regia.

I have refined computer cpu's, scrap jewelry, dental gold and placer gold. Since October, I have recovered/refined 402.56 grams of .999 fine gold - a bit over a troy pound. In the process, I have accumulated a couple of ounces of 9 to 10 kt gold/silver which is a bitch to refine. The silver content blocks the aqua regia from the gold and the gold content protects the silver from nitric acid. I suppose I could alloy up or down and use aqua regia, but hope someone on this site can recommend an alternative method for that pesky 10 kt gold silver stuff. Any suggestions?

Tarvus


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## Noxx (Mar 27, 2007)

Hello Tarvus and welcome !
I mostly did the same thing as yours but in two years. Except that I only refined about 50 grams of pure gold lol.
As for your jewelry, my advice would be to alloy it down with silver then dissolve everything with Nitric Acid. You keep the gold then precipitate the silver out. I'm also making my AR with potassium nitrate.
If you have any questions, just ask or PM me.


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## lazersteve (Mar 27, 2007)

Hello Tarvus,

To the best of my knowledge Harold is the resident 'old timer' (no offense Harold :lol: )when it comes to hands on use of AR. Here's a post of his that should help with your low karat gold question:

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=1368&highlight=#1368.

There are numerous other posts on the subject here on the forum.

I look forward to chatting with you.

Steve


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## Harold_V (Mar 27, 2007)

lazersteve said:


> To the best of my knowledge Harold is the resident 'old timer' (no offense Harold :lol: )



Heh! More ways than one, Steve. Not only have I been "playing" with gold since 1972, I'm also likely the old guy on the list, being 67 years old now. 

Harold


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## catfish (Mar 31, 2007)

I guess it is my turn:

I only been in the refining and recovery process about a year and half. I have been buying karat gold and reselling for a couple of years and have recently became interested in gold refining and recovery. I was running across a lot of plate and filled items and walking away from them when I was buying karat gold.

After purchasing several ebooks fom various folks on the subject of gold refining and recovery, I finally got up enough nerve to tackle it. I made many simular mistakes, as already mentioned. My first actuall gold nugget I recovered in an electrolytic cell using sulphuric acid (rooto professional drain cleaner) was my worst night mare. I was heating it on a fire brick with an oxygen and mapp gas tourch and while working with the nugget I blew it off in the grass. I never did find it. (that is a sacret place in my yard to day). I still was very happy with my results though. I have since purchased a paragon precious metal oven (2400 degrees F.)

Folks I am kinda like the above newbie, I have spent quite a bit of my hard owned money looking for a silver bullet. I finally did buy a ebook from a guy named Steve Spevak and finally got my Aqua Regia process down pat. I made several modifications to his instructions, but now I feel very comfortable with refining very small karat gold items, CPU's, pins and fingers.

Then I went back to the electrolysis cell and finally got a good workable system in using glycern and Easy Flow drain cleaner. This drain cleaner has some additives but they do not interfere with the cell process and the acid turns very clear so you can see what you are doing. I use a lead cathode and stainless aligator clips to hold the gold plated items.

So now I do both and also when I find gold plated or filled items I buy them cheap and process them in to 22 to 23.5 gold nuggets. I then sell them with my karat gold and it suplements my gold buying and selling business. I also make every (literally) garage sale in my neck of the woods and pick up many old computers as well as lots of gold and silver.

I also have a small electronics business and have many friends in the computer repair and sales business that I work or associate with that gives me all thier old vintage machines for the mere price of hauling them away. I salvage them and mine out most of the gold plated items such as chips, fingers, pins and any thing else that has gold content.

I had lots of hobbies in my life time, but I can truthly say this has been the most interesting and rewarding experiences that I have ever done.

I also, like many other newbes, first hooked up with the other forum but after finding this forum, it was a no-brainer for me to sign up here and drop out of the other one. I have only been on this forum a couple of weeks and have gained an incrediable amount of knowledge from just reading all the postings and enjoying the good healthly dialog by the members. I can't wait until I can try some of the processes that I have learned on this site.

Yo will certainly be hearing from me in the future.

Thanks to the site administrater who spends his hard earned money and precious time in setting up this site and maintaing it. I also want to thank the members who have shared and contibuted thier secerts and knowledge with us folks who are very new at this. My hat is off to all of you.

Thanks

Catfish


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## Noxx (Mar 31, 2007)

> I also, like many other newbes, first hooked up with the other forum but after finding this forum, it was a no-brainer for me to sign up here and drop out of the other one.


It's normal. People prefer quality 


```
Thanks to the site administrater who spends his hard earned money and precious time in setting up this site and maintaing it.
```
Fortunatly, I did not spent a lot of money on this forum. Only 20 bucks ! But everything I learned worth a lot more. But yes, it tooks a lot of time to set it up and maintain it. I would like this forum to become the reference for gold refining/recovery. Maybe one day...


```
You will certainly be hearing from me in the future.
```
I hope !

Your comments touches me a lot.  
Thanks


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## darkelf2x1 (Apr 8, 2007)

so far i have processed 525.8 grams pure gold


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## Noxx (Apr 8, 2007)

Wow thats a lot ! Any pictures to add to the gallery ?
Welcome to the forum !
Thanks


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## darkelf2x1 (Apr 8, 2007)

most of it was sold to jewelers


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## lazersteve (Apr 8, 2007)

Welcome Darkelf,

What method are you using to get your gold?

Steve


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## darkelf2x1 (Apr 9, 2007)

an electolysis kit i bought online - but thats only 0.9995, i send it off to a refiner to get it up to 0.9999,


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 9, 2007)

To jmelson,

Techni-strip Au is a very poor choice of stripper for the refiner. It's very expensive and it's extremely difficult to remove all of the gold from the solution. Most of the gold is probably still in the solution. I imagine that your low yields are due to this difficulty. Usually, most users ship the loaded stripper back to Technic for gold extraction. Technic also sells proprietary additives to help get the gold out but, I haven't had much luck with them. The standard zinc dust method for removing gold from cyanides doesn't work on this product. There is a particularly nasty precipitation method using sodium hydrosulfite but, I certainly don't recommend it. The best way is to not use this product, to start with.

Techni-Strip Au is a cyanide based stripper designed for platers to remove faulty gold plating so that the parts can be re-plated. The older commercial strippers didn't work too well. They attacked the underlying base metals and, also, the dissolved gold would tend to plate back onto the copper. Technic came up with additives to prevent these things from happening. These additives also prevent the user from being able to drop all of the gold out. It strips great but, it doesn't want to give up the gold.


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## Anonymous (Jan 6, 2008)

Guess I'll go next.I've been at it for about 3 months now.My favorite method is AP.Its very inexpensive,you dont have to baby sit it,I get clean gold,and you can rejuvenate it when youre done.The cell is hands down the fastest.Although its a bit more work and the cleaning process can get a bit messy if youre not careful.I hope to one day invent a machine that can process gold from computers and is completely hands free.Just simply put in the prestripped parts and the chemicals and what you get at the end is just gold dust that needs to be filtered and melted.The volumes of information I have recieved on here in the short ttime I have been doing this is priceless!I can't begin to tell you guys how much I appreciate it.I will try to add a picture of the last nugget I made.It isnt perfect but Im still working on it.Well I cant get the picture on,the pixels are too high,maybe I will figure it out later.
Johnny


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## skyline27 (Jan 7, 2008)

After fumbling around with AR and Shor products I settled in with Acid-Peroxide. I don't have accces to a torch yet so my take so far is 15g of washed powder and 20g of stripped foils. I'm not processing scrap anymore because the fools on ebay are paying more than I could ever get from refining it myself. And with far less work. Not that it's only about money. It's been really fun and I've learned a lot. 

Thanks for all the good advice from Forum members. I would not have figured any of this out on my own!


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## Palladium (Aug 24, 2011)

Noxx said:


> > Fortunatly, I did not spent a lot of money on this forum. Only 20 bucks ! But everything I learned worth a lot more. But yes, it tooks a lot of time to set it up and maintain it. I would like this forum to become the reference for gold refining/recovery. Maybe one day...



You was talking about seeing the progress of the forum and members earlier Chris. Now you got me going back in time.  

May the GRF have many more years of success and accomplishments. 8)


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## silversaddle1 (Aug 24, 2011)

I just sell the plated product and buy gold. With soooo much cumputer stuff to strip down, I really don't need a hobby right now. But I do like reading and learning the methods to refine gold, who knows, maybe someday!


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## METLMASHER (Sep 19, 2011)

Hi, just wanted to thank the hard working guys who have made this a great place of knowledge.
My _recovery_ is higher than my _refine_d gold but it's about 15 grams so far.
I sell as fast as I can and experiment ALOT ways to grind up plate and such.
Since I am not sure of the 'silver deplating loop' I want to try my homemade vibra grinder for deplating and concentrating the silver to melt, then refine.
My first nuggy 7.8 grams 14 - 16 kt. :roll: BEST one yet! Ohhhh yeah! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: 8)


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## Acid_Bath76 (Sep 19, 2011)

1) My preferred method is AR

2) I've been doing this for less than a year... started February 2011.. first attempt was in May.. didn't go so well. 

3) I've recovered about 200g of 95%+ Au... This site is, hands down, completely responsible for my success... . . well .. and a lot of reading.


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## Nickpearl (Sep 24, 2011)

Now this may sound silly, but I've got a total of 13.5 grams of "gold".
It came from contacts, plated jewelry and mostly gold filled items.
I've yet to work with computer parts, IC's and CPU's and gold trimmed glasses (like wine glasses).

I've done Nitric mostly, filtered, washed, then melted down (inquarting, I think).
I've also done several AR batches ranging from where's the gold to plenty of powder.
My best melt (prettiest powder and gold) thus far was when I dropped, boiled with sulfuric, then with HCl, then rinsed with water, then one more time with HCL. My worst melt resulted in "where did the gold go).

What's interesting is all the gold I've now melted tests strong for 14k - no fading of the scratches, and at 18K test, most of the scratches fade.
This applies to both nitric only and AR batches. Not sure what I've done, but I guess I'll pick a gram or two of buttons and re-AR to see if I can get pure. I also am not that good at melting down to get nice looking buttons. Seems the oxidation gets me unless I can move the molten gold to water or into a another ceramic dish.

Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks, Nick


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## Smack (Sep 24, 2011)

Still using Nitric, HCL, Sulfuric, & SMB Use a fume hood and do some stuff outdoors as well just depends on the temp. I've got most of the goodies to work with like a ball mill, lab setup, testing solutions, vacuum filter setup, chemical proof counter tops and so on. And still getting chemicals pretty cheap so I'll keep playing.


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## Harold_V (Sep 25, 2011)

Nickpearl said:


> I've done Nitric mostly, filtered, washed, then melted down (inquarting, I think).


Inquarting is to add silver (or copper) to the gold, so that the amount of gold contained within is reduced to 25%, or *quartered*. At that level of concentration, base metals can be dissolved, leaving the gold behind. If you didn't do that process, you didn't inquart. 



> My best melt (prettiest powder and gold) thus far was when I dropped, boiled with sulfuric, then with HCl, then rinsed with water, then one more time with HCL.


While I don't doubt that would work, I tend to avoid suggesting that gold be washed with sulfuric. It's nasty stuff, far more dangerous to use than HCl, which does an adequate job. 
Just sayin', you understand!



> What's interesting is all the gold I've now melted tests strong for 14k - no fading of the scratches, and at 18K test, most of the scratches fade.


That doesn't make a lot of sense. If you've dissolved and precipitated gold, even without washing, I'd expect 97% purity, easily. 
A scratch test is worthless for testing purity of pure gold. What you should be looking for is the color of the flux in the melting dish (dish should be new, or used ONLY for melting pure gold), the texture of the gold after it solidifies, the color of the surface of the gold after it solidifies, and if there is a pipe, or not. When those features are correct, you can be pretty much assured you have created gold that is close to the minimum industry standard of 9995. To expect greater purity isn't unreasonable, but it's not easy to accomplish, particularly if you have bad work hygiene habits. 



> Seems the oxidation gets me unless I can move the molten gold to water or into a another ceramic dish.


That makes no sense. Gold does not oxidize. If, when you melt gold, you get any discoloration, it's because it's not pure. Switching to a different dish won't solve the problem---but proper refining techniques will. It might pay you to explore what you're doing, and make some changes. If you follow the advice that has been tendered on this forum, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to produce fine gold. If you prefer to take shortcuts, or to alter procedures to your liking, that may not be true. 

Harold


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## Nickpearl (Sep 25, 2011)

Thanks, Harold.
I understand and maybe I can clarify - I think I get it:
1. I falsely assumed since Gold Fill is 1/10 or 1/20 that the nitric would leave just the karated gold and that's what I melted. Now that I'm more comfortable using the AR, I intend to always AR from this point on.
2. You make sense - when I melted the non-AR powder I get much blue-ish residue in the dish (borax). When I melted the AR powder, I did not and the gold was much brighter. I can look at the melted bb's even now and tell the difference in brightness. 
3. Good to know gold won't oxidize and I do not have pure gold. I watched one bead cool from red hot to almost a black coating. I watched the AR bead cool to a nice bright color. I will also look for the pipe.

You folks and this site has been invaluable. At this age to take up a new hobby like this is awesome! Where can I make a contribution to the site?
Thanks
Nick


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## Harold_V (Sep 26, 2011)

Nickpearl said:


> Where can I make a contribution to the site?


The site is solely owned by our own Noxx. He is a fine young man, having founded the forum when he was but 17 years old. He is now attending college, and, so you'll know, foots the full cost of the operation of the forum at his expense. I'm sure he'd welcome a contribution, and we all thank you for your consideration. You can contact him via the PM feature of the board, His name is the only one that appears in red text. 

It might be helpful for you to know that those of us that moderate do so without compensation. Goes to show how seriously we take our positions, here. We hope to help educate those that are sincere. We are also very short of patience with those that are not. 

Harold


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## Nickpearl (Sep 26, 2011)

Thank you, I will make a contribution.
As far as patience, I can take the hits - small price to pay for knowledge. 
Thank you Harold.

By the way, Hoke used sulfuric to get the lead out, then would cook with HCL to remove the remaining nitric.
In your previous post, you said sulfuric isn't necessary.
I use these techniques because Urea doesn't seem to work (or I haven't yet learned how to use it - I need litmus paper to know when acidity is gone).
Thanks
Nick


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## Geo (Sep 26, 2011)

an alternative to AR is hydrochloric acid+chlorine, it will disslove gold and without the need to evaporate excess nitric acid.


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## Harold_V (Sep 26, 2011)

Nickpearl said:


> As far as patience, I can take the hits - small price to pay for knowledge.
> Thank you Harold.


Not a comment directed towards you, I'm sure you understand. It's clear when a reader has good intentions, and just as clear when they're here for the fight. You've been a pleasure. 



> By the way, Hoke used sulfuric to get the lead out, then would cook with HCL to remove the remaining nitric.
> In your previous post, you said sulfuric isn't necessary.


Just not interpreted correctly. Sulfuric is necessary, but for reasons you stated---to precipitate traces of lead as lead sulfate, which is then removed from the gold chloride solution in filtration. My comment about sulfuric was directed towards the washing of the resulting gold powder, where HCl is the acid of choice. 



> I use these techniques because Urea doesn't seem to work (or I haven't yet learned how to use it - I need litmus paper to know when acidity is gone).


Frankly, I admire your procedure. I refined for more than twenty years and never used urea, ever. 

By the way, when you evaporate, there's a little trick that can save considerable time, and assure that you consume any free nitric. I used to add a button of pure gold to my solutions when I started the evaporation process. So long as you have free HCl present, it will consume the free nitric by dissolving a portion, or all, of the button. By weighing the added button before it is introduced to the solution, you can determine how much gold was consumed, so you can make determinations of yields of the starting materials. 

Harold


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## jaythenutz (Sep 27, 2011)

My favorite run was with wafer. I had got 43 lbs of raw silicon wafer, they never went further than the gold plating or etching im not realty sure on what the process that is used. they were 4 inches to6 inches in diameter. never seeing any post here or no mention of them in hokes i preceded to test the different methods. Started with AP from cold to warm the gold remained on the wafer. So then i tried with HCI and Clorox and gold went in to solution very quickly id say in 10 minutes with no heat. (from an out side source) so i did 4 6 inch wafers separately each 6 inch wafer gold recovered from each was .15-.17. there were some were between 700 and 800 disk. I did then in four separate batches. In side of small round cubical type trash cans. The only problems i ran into was them being disks with gold only on one side they would form a suction ans stick together. my fix was added wafer and maybe 10 to 15 lbs of the biggest sockets i had put the lid on the trash can and shake it all about , until they were in like 1/4 inch pieces .then i ad HCI filling about 4 inches over the now busted up wafer( i think it was a 1 1/2 gallon) then with safety gear from head to toe i added Clorox in 1 cup at a time and stirring until i reached the correct ratio . i let id stand stirring every 20 minutes. for 2 hours but not all the gold was coming off so i add more Clorox and stirring . and stirring and stirring. to cut to the chase by the second day i had 4 of my 5000ml bottles full near the top of the most beautiful canary yellow i have ever seen. I had to filter 4 times through 7 to 8 coffee filters vacuum assisted do to very tiny particles like glitter but to get it on you was more like fiber glass insulation but slightly worse. ther were no other metals so after drop with smb i ended up with 3 troy ounce buttons and one 18 gram one. and later 9 more grams from burning the filters.


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## Smack (Sep 27, 2011)

That sounds really cool Jay, did you take any pic's? Would like to see what it was you processed.


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## tek4g63 (Dec 2, 2011)

I have only just started gold recvery (about 2 months) and have not yet braved the refining.

I have tried several ways described here and by Hoke, but what works the best for me is AP. I don't get a lot of free time and this meathod is great because I can set it up, stop in the middle if I have to and pick right back up where I left off with no problem.

Right now, while I'm still learning I am only processing pins because I have a lot of them. I will start "fingers" next. I have recovered nearly 10g of foils to date and have another small batch running as we speak. 

I have a great deal of questions about failed attempts before I started using the AP process, but I want to go about it the right way and search this forum for the answers before I ask a bunch of things that have been asked a million times before. 

Thank you Noxx, and the whole "family" for this great welth of knowladge!


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## FrugalRefiner (Mar 10, 2012)

Harold_V said:


> Nickpearl said:
> 
> 
> > Where can I make a contribution to the site?
> ...



For those who find this site helpful and would like to make a donation, you don't need to PM Noxx. There is a Donation button on the web site's index page, before you log in. I didn't notice it for a long time because I was so anxious to log in and start reading every day.

They even accept Paypal! Use it. I just did.

Dave


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## Harold_V (Mar 11, 2012)

downsizing56 said:


> For those who find this site helpful and would like to make a donation, you don't need to PM Noxx. There is a Donation button on the web site's index page, before you log in. I didn't notice it for a long time because I was so anxious to log in and start reading every day.
> 
> They even accept Paypal! Use it. I just did.
> 
> Dave


Thanks for that very informative post, Dave. I was not aware of the donation button!  
(And thanks for your support of the forum!)

Harold


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## bobinpasask (Mar 18, 2012)

Just to catch up to you guys,
I've processed over 160 oz. in my lab from placer materials (refined elsewhere)and then got started using AR on some of the cons. BIG mistake ! Nearly fried every piece of iron in the lab including microscope, tweezers, screwdrivers, you name it ! Very poor handling on my part, obviously.

4 years ago I then started reading THE Forum and printing pages (over 800 to date and in books by topic) to try to understand what to do next. Since buying Lazer Steve's videos and looking at his site, I have been sold on the AP process. 

Over the last year, have been using AP on E-scrap and produced less than one ounce. Ran 5 batches last week, all yellow with AuCl3 and added SMB to all.

All cleared and only 4 dropped. No idea what happened to the last one. It's still sitting on the shelf (clear) and laughing at me. I have no idea what I did wrong and no idea what to do with it next. 

Shows you..... 4 years of reading and 1 year of playing and you are still humbled. 

Also started 2 weeks ago with a little e-cell based solely on Steve's videos. So far, it's working well and I am just learning what to do with the sludge. 

I hate it when guys get trashed on here but I truly appreciate the effort the guys in the know put into this forum. I wouldn't know a damned thing without
you. Bob in Canada


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## Geo (Mar 18, 2012)

bobinpasask said:


> All cleared and only 4 dropped. No idea what happened to the last one. It's still sitting on the shelf (clear) and laughing at me. I have no idea what I did wrong and no idea what to do with it next.



did you test your solution to be sure you had gold in solution?

did you make sure you added SMB?

did you test after you added the SMB and gold didn't drop?


if theres gold still in solution.warm the solution to the point where it steams and remove from heat.allow solution to cool.add your SMB to warm water (just enough to dissolve the SMB) and add to the gold solution and stir.


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## bobinpasask (Mar 18, 2012)

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try it.

No, I did not test before using the SMB. All the batches were done at the same time and the same process. The HCL/Cl method for dissolving was used. All the yellow AuCl3 was put itnot beakers, lined up along the bench and SMB added to all, one after the other.
I know that it is SMB and the other 4 batches produced 2.3, 0.5, 3.4 and 5.3 grams but the last one = zero gm. The 5.3 gm. was from 640 gm. of quite old fingers. The zero batch was from 540 gm. of new fingers, so would have expected maybe 2.5 to 3.0 gms. ??

I will go out and test the clear liquid (need to make a new batch of stannous) a let you know.
Bob


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## Palladium (Mar 18, 2012)

If you can't get the gold to drop out of the last batch you always have the option of placing a piece of copper in it to cement the values and start over from there.


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