# ok finally the answer to my 20ppm tailing



## kjavanb123 (May 13, 2009)

Hi

After spending 2 days with the chemist who produced that much gold and silver from 2 tailing samples provided to him. I went over it with him and saw it with my own eyes how he extracted gold and silver from 0.5kg sample from tailing i provided him. here is his steps in which i saw every thing.

1. He put 0.5kg tailing sample in a jar, and pour some gasoline on it and let is burn for an hour. To remove all the unwanted and dangerous stuff.

2. He then burned up the little clay holder and add some Borax to it. 

3. He melted some lead from a broken pipe. It got melted and burned then poured off the melted one to cool. Then crush the PbO and mix it with tailing sample and some more Borax.

4. Poured a spoon of the above mixture into the clay holder and use the oxygen + gas to melt the soil. It would remove the slag from time to time. add some more lead. This part took almost 4-6 hrs in total.

5. Near the end of part 4 he added some silver tiny amounts. he said it would extract the gold from the smelting. 

6. It burned most of it. till one tiny dot (2cm) in diameter was in the middle of the slags left. which he said contains lead, gold and silver. He precisly removed that dot and cool it in water then it became hard. 

7. He then put that dot in step 6 into Aqua Regia. It first dissolved with white fume, then white fumes turned into yellowish with some dark particles in the liquid. which are pure GOLD after he melted with Borax !!!!!

8. He added some hot water to solution above and the liquid turned white it poured it off in a jar and add a copper rod and boom all the silver were attached to it.

This is how they extract gold and silver from a tailing that most assaying labs claimed had only 0.2 grams per ton. and what I got from a 0.5kg was a lot. I have to weigh it today.

Keep you posted.


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## qst42know (May 13, 2009)

This process you describe is a very primitive "fire assay". 

There are some well described fire assay techniques here on the forum, you just need to find them.

The correct flux for your material would need to be determined. 

Scorification to collect the metallics before you assay may also be a required step. (no slag scraping during the assay)


This is not a production technique. Even when done well it is limited to small lots.

If this is your processor how did he intend to do volumes at a time?


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## markqf1 (May 13, 2009)

Right on,
This was an assay, and not a recovery technique.
It takes a little time (mathematics) to learn the difference.

I won't go into the ramifications of using even a small amount of lead.

If you're looking to make money, you better check into the gov't regs.

Proving it's there and getting it out are two different processes.

Mark


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## qst42know (May 13, 2009)

Only barely an assay. 

Gold and or silver may have been present in the lead pipe, gold may have been present in the silver that was added, or some was collected from the tailing's.

To make an important value judgement only high quality ingredients of known purity should be used.


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## kjavanb123 (May 13, 2009)

ok

I just did this to make sure he is not some slick dude trying to prove there is gold/silver in my tailing. 

1. How come all the labs showed only 0.5 grams per tons of Au, vs this assay showed 20grams of Au. I weighed the gold from this process and it was 0.010 grams from 400 grams of tailing. if you do the math you see it should have 20 grams per tons. So he was right on track when he told me before I even weigh it.

2. Of course this is not commercial way of processing tailing. He has done production level also in the past, using furnace and smelting and AR. He already have a 6tons per day gasoline rolling furnace which he used before. Once agreed he is gonna process 20tons of the tailing using this furnace to see the output. Upon success we shall install the furnace and other stuff on tailing sight and roll.

peace


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## qst42know (May 14, 2009)

It's not unheard of to find PM values in old lead. You don't know that the silver added was pure. You don't know this fellows motives. 

Too many unknowns to base a decision on I would think.

I do hope you are successful, but don't base your decision on poor science.

The difficulties of sampling has already been discussed. 

You could learn fire assaying and do your own testing.


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## 4metals (May 14, 2009)

You have said before this guy wants to get involved in a joint venture with you. That means he has something to gain if you think there is gold there. As I said in earlier posts, break the loop with the local guys until a reputable lab, totally removed from the situation, confirms the assays you need to see to get involved. 

It's easy to salt an assay when you've had all day to do it. Even at 20 grams per ton you're talking alot of gold in 5 million tons of tailings, what are the odds of it being real? That bridge in Brooklyn is still for sale.


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## qst42know (May 16, 2009)

kjavanb123 said:


> 7. He then put that dot in step 6 into Aqua Regia. It first dissolved with white fume, then white fumes turned into yellowish with some dark particles in the liquid. which are pure GOLD after he melted with Borax !!!!!
> 
> Keep you posted.



After reading your post over again it is possible your chemist might not be trying to deceive you deliberately, but made an error in processing.

Your gold bead may still contain silver that survived the Aqua Regia. AR does not reliably remove silver.

Inquarting the resulting bead from the assay is an important step we all missed.  

This may be the source of the discrepancy between your assays.


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## kjavanb123 (May 17, 2009)

qst42know said:


> Only barely an assay.
> 
> Gold and or silver may have been present in the lead pipe, gold may have been present in the silver that was added, or some was collected from the tailing's.
> 
> To make an important value judgement only high quality ingredients of known purity should be used.




If there is this much gold and silver in lead pipes then very best to plumbers!! I know for sure the silver and lead pipe were clean from any gold in them. I purchased them from a reliable sources. Plus he melted 30% lead pipe the 70% rest were tailing that were melted.


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## Platdigger (May 17, 2009)

Ammen in his book has this to say:

"It is very important that you assay the litharge and any lead foil used in a crucible assay or scorification in order to determine the presence or absence of precious metal values in these materials.
If litharge or lead contains values, these values must be carefully weighed and deducted from the findings of any assay in which they are incorporated."

He also states in another part of the same book that he once purchased some scrap lead to smelt material carrying 1/4 ounce of Au, only to find the lead he had purchased had 1 ounce of Au per ton and 15 ounces of Ag per ton.

Randy


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## kjavanb123 (May 17, 2009)

Platdigger said:


> Ammen in his book has this to say:
> 
> "It is very important that you assay the litharge and any lead foil used in a crucible assay or scorification in order to determine the presence or absence of precious metal values in these materials.
> If litharge or lead contains values, these values must be carefully weighed and deducted from the findings of any assay in which they are incorporated."
> ...




This is interesting stuff. This would put lead pipe industries under some serious spotlight. Again he is in hospital for a kidney stone removal should be back operational in a few days. Then we will have to process 20t of tailing using his gasoline furnace and based on the information we can estimate the cost and production. Will keep you posted.


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## qst42know (May 17, 2009)

Lead pipe is not a critical application requiring high purity lead. Extensive processing to remove the slightest traces of other metals would not have been performed. A 1/2% other metals is probably still considered good lead.

Precious metal fire assays are exactly the opposite. A 1/2% error multiplied out to the ton is huge. Fire assays are used to *detect* the slightest traces of precious metals.

The use of *Aqua Regia* is the most likely source of error. The weight of the silver still in your gold has made your estimate of gold content useless.

It would seem you are going ahead with this project anyway. I wish you good luck. But I suspect your other assays will be closer to the actual yields of your tailing's.


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## kjavanb123 (May 18, 2009)

guys

thanks for all your responds. This chemist guy used to process Anode Slimes using the same methods in large scales, so he is not some freshman in this field. I did some research on him he is reliable and accountable. we will see how it goes when we process 20tons of tailing. It will show for sure then if tailing has 20ppm or it won't. If ( in my guess when ) this happens, then we have many yrs to process 5 million tons of tailing


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