# Bonding wires on my concentrator table



## kurtak (Mar 13, 2016)

Ran some chip ash on my concentrator table the other day & thought you guys would enjoy some pics

Kurt


----------



## crbaker41 (Mar 13, 2016)

how many pounds of chips to get that? very nice


----------



## ettran (Mar 13, 2016)

hi , geat job kurt. still saving some up for you , ed.


----------



## denim (Mar 13, 2016)

I'll be waiting for the picture of the bar, or button, you get from that. I presume I contributed to that to some degree. Thanks for the picts.
Dennis


----------



## glorycloud (Mar 14, 2016)

Nice!


----------



## Anonymous (Mar 14, 2016)

Looks great Kurt. 

Fantastic to see someone doing it properly.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Mar 14, 2016)

Watch out Kurt! We can almost see what you look like in the reflection on that third picture. :lol: 

Dave


----------



## gaurav_347 (Mar 15, 2016)

Sir,

That looks Awesome. A few questions. Are you able to get all the gold out from these chips that you processed? What kind of shaker table are you using?

Thanks and Regards,
Gaurav


----------



## acpeacemaker (Mar 15, 2016)

I see the bonding wires, but where's the gold? :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Geo (Mar 16, 2016)

A large part of the brown in those pictures is copper. Some of the magnetics will be copper coated iron. The actual bonding wires is the light yellow color near the top. You can see a clear distinction between the bright yellow gold metal and the dull brown copper metal. It truly is a beautiful sight though. Good work.I am in the panning stage. I will try to post a vid of me panning bonding wires by hand in a day or two. I will be doing it tomorrow but as slow as youtube uploads, it might be the day after before it goes public.


----------



## kurtak (Mar 18, 2016)

Sorry for the delay in posting anymore here but have been quite busy taking advantage of the few day of "way" above normal temps we had doing other things --- temps are back "down" to normal again 

So here are a couple pics of the "first" drop on the bonding wires - I did a 2 gram test melt & was not happy with it so it will now go for a second refine

This was from about 11.75 pounds of N/S BGAs (back tops only) & yes the yield may seem low but that is actually by intent --- (at 4 grams/lb 11.75 pounds would be an expected yield of about 47 grams & I got only 35.3 grams recovered powder - so 12g under expected)

Here is the thing --- because of the high bonding wire content in BGAs I do a down & dirty fast run when concentrating them to get the bulk of the gold on the "first" run - meaning I run both the water flow & the ash feed rate faster then you would to catch all the gold on this first run - meaning I know I am going to wash gold off in this first run --- & I do so for good reason

Because BGAs have a high concentration of bonding wires to start with - they also (as Geo pointed out) have a "very" high concentration of "very" fine copper wires - fine enough to go though my 80 mesh sifting screen

This high wire content in BGA ash (both copper & gold) hinders the washing process in that as they collect at the head of the table they also become a trap for the ash its self - if - you try to run the water flow slow enough to "not" wash wire off with the ash - which in turn means you don't actually get a good "concentrate"

In other words the purpose of the first wash is to wash off the "bulk" of the ash - leaving you with a "high" concentration of wire --- even though you are also washing off "some" gold 

Yes this means you have to run your first ash "wash off" a second time - but - what you will find is that you can make this second run faster as well (even though you run both the water flow & ash feed rate slower then the first time) because you have got rid of the bulk of the wire that traps ash - if - you try to catch all the wire with a slow water flow in the first run

In other words - on the second run you slow the water flow down so that it doesn't move (wash) gold down the table - but you can feed the ash faster because the lighter ash washes away faster unhindered (no longer getting trapped) in a bulk of wire --- so in the long run you actually save time (a lot of time) AND get a better concentration by running the ash twice

I was unable to do the second wash due to needing to get some other things done during the few days of nice weather we had & then the weather got bad again so just decided to process the wires from the first run 

Just as a note - the powders actually look a lot better then the pics show - due to lighting they are actually brighter in color then they appear in the pics

Edit to add; - Dennis - yes - this was a combination of the BGAs you sent me along with personal BGAs & BGAs Alexxx sent me

Kurt


----------



## kurtak (Mar 18, 2016)

crbaker41 said:


> how many pounds of chips to get that? very nice



I had a total of about 15 - 16 cups of ash to run (from 11.75 pounds of chips) the pics of the wires on the concentrator table are about 3 cups of ash - after running about 3 cups of ash I would have to clean out the table because it would be to loaded to run any more

Kurt


----------



## kurtak (Mar 18, 2016)

gaurav_347 said:


> What kind of shaker table are you using?
> 
> Thanks and Regards,
> Gaurav



Its actually not a shaker table - its more of a Miller table that I made

Kurt


----------



## ettran (Mar 18, 2016)

hi kurt , are those black mats grooved floor mats , ed.


----------



## kurtak (Mar 18, 2016)

FrugalRefiner said:


> Watch out Kurt! We can almost see what you look like in the reflection on that third picture. :lol:
> 
> Dave



Is this better - I am sort of an "old" hippie/outlaw biker/logger/mountain man kind of guy :shock: :lol: :mrgreen: 

Kurt


----------



## kurtak (Mar 18, 2016)

ettran said:


> hi kurt , are those black mats grooved floor mats , ed.



I'm not sure if its used for floor mats or not - mechanics use it for lining the bottom of their tool box drawers (as do I) I picked up a roll of it at a local auction of an old motor shop that was closing down a few years ago (it was in a box of mix/match stuff) I believe you can find it on E-bay though

The pic shows the thickness compared to a quarter - so I think its kind of thin for floor matting

Kurt


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Mar 18, 2016)

kurtak said:


> Is this better - I am sort of an "old" hippie/outlaw biker/logger/mountain man kind of guy :shock: :lol: :mrgreen:
> 
> Kurt


Exactly how I imagined you!

Dave


----------



## ettran (Mar 18, 2016)

kurtak said:


> ettran said:
> 
> 
> > hi kurt , are those black mats grooved floor mats , ed.
> ...


thank you for your fast reply ,great picture , ed.


----------



## Grelko (Mar 18, 2016)

Very nice work there kurtak, I need to make a small table like that someday. I have close to 15 pounds of chips that I still need to process.



FrugalRefiner said:


> kurtak said:
> 
> 
> > Is this better - I am sort of an "old" hippie/outlaw biker/logger/mountain man kind of guy :shock: :lol: :mrgreen:
> ...



:shock: I always thought that you would have been in your late 20s or early 30s, until I saw the birthday announcement at the bottom and that picture. I was going to call you "dude", but I guess I should start calling you sir.


----------



## alexxx (Mar 18, 2016)

Kurt, the offer still stands to process that drum of ashes from illinois. 
A few more ounces up for grab.

Nice work on the powder, even if you dont find it pure enough, it shows some nice skills.
Running bigger volumes always gets tricky.


----------



## UncleBenBen (Mar 18, 2016)

Grelko said:


> until I saw the birthday announcement at the bottom and that picture



Am I looking at the wrong picture? I don't see the announcement your talking about Grelko. Maybe my phone got messed up from that update more than I thought.


----------



## Grelko (Mar 18, 2016)

UncleBenBen said:


> Grelko said:
> 
> 
> > until I saw the birthday announcement at the bottom and that picture
> ...



It was back on the 11th. I should have said "at the bottom, a few days ago"

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=23619


----------



## UncleBenBen (Mar 18, 2016)

Aahhh OK got you! Thanks Grelko. I thought for a second that might have been a friendly jab at the beard! :lol: :lol: 

I don't guess that's real good sign of years though. Specially since I've got a lot more platinum in mine than Kurt does. Or was it rhodium. Hmm, may be time for another assay!


----------



## Grelko (Mar 18, 2016)

UncleBenBen said:


> Aahhh OK got you! Thanks Grelko. I thought for a second that might have been a friendly jab at the beard! :lol: :lol:
> 
> I don't guess that's real good sign of years though. Specially since I've got a lot more platinum in mine than Kurt does. Or was it rhodium. Hmm, may be time for another assay!



No complaints here. Just no beard for me, seeing that I tried to grow one for about 6 months and it wasn't even an inch long :| I wouldn't even poke fun at the platinum. :lol: My hair's been pretty much grey on the sides since back in middle school and with my widows peak, some of my school pictures looked like a mix between Bela Lugosi and Eddie Munster. :mrgreen:


----------



## patnor1011 (Mar 19, 2016)

Kurt, these copper wires come from bottom of black part of BGA, they are stuck in there and ripped off from green part when separating. I too prefer to keep them separately from bonding wires when washing and got simple technique for that. I mentioned that in my big thread in this post :arrow: http://goo.gl/ZmwlPH

It can be done when material is wet or dry but I do prefer dry variant. Take pan or round shaped container and put powder inside and shake it to make swirling motion. Wires will start accumulating in the middle on top. I do collect them, put aside and repeat... You can get rid of most of them prior washing concentrate on your washing table.


----------



## denim (Mar 19, 2016)

Yep, perspective is an amazing thing. From the looks of the wires on your miller table I would have guessed there must have been 3-5ozt there. Great job however. Nice to see someone pursuing a system for processing chips on a larger scale. Also nice to know I had some input into it. Keep up the good work my friend!

Dennis


----------



## kurtak (Mar 20, 2016)

Pat

Thanks for the tip (link to your post) I am not sure how I missed that as I try to read everything you post - I will certainly give that a try (the dry shaking method) the next time I am doing a batch of BGAs

Kurt


----------



## crbaker41 (Jun 19, 2016)

nice miller table I am still building mine. Still have 26 pounds of chips to incinerate.


----------

