# wiper connectors



## floppy (Apr 4, 2011)

I have a couple questions about some connectors I came across. These are some pictures of wiper connectors that are found on old stepper switches that telephone companies used for decades. The end of each wiper appears to have a fingernail like sheet of gold on the end of each finger. I was wondering if anyone else has ever seen these, and could it possibly be a piece of solid gold. Here are the pictures but I couldnt get a real sharp image. I have about 33 grams of the ends cut as close to the gold as I could get. Please let me know your thoughts.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Apr 4, 2011)

We can't tell by the pictures. The item is too close to the camera.


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## floppy (Apr 4, 2011)

here are better pics.


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## lazersteve (Apr 4, 2011)

Can you make out any manufacturer name or part number on the body of the part?

Steve


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## glondor (Apr 4, 2011)

Just a question. Would it make sense for the contact point of that part to be gold? It seems to be a contact that would swing through an arc in contact with another surface. Pure gold is so soft it seems it would wear out very quickly. Perhaps it is an alloy?


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## Oz (Apr 4, 2011)

In this application it makes little sense (if the contact is actually gold) for it to be plated only. If gold I would assume it to be an alloy that gives some hardness, this may be one of those rare exception type pieces in that karat gold is indeed being used instead of just plated gold. 

It will be interesting to find out. If some kind of identification number is forthcoming Steve is good at sniffing out spec sheets.


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## glondor (Apr 4, 2011)

Floppy informed me by PM that the contact points are indeed almost worn off on some of the pieces. Maybe it was a "set it and forget it" type of dial.


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## Oz (Apr 4, 2011)

glondor said:


> Floppy informed me by PM that the contact points are indeed almost worn off on some of the pieces. Maybe it was a "set it and forget it" type of dial.


Or they were taken out of service because the contact pads wore through.


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## burban (Apr 4, 2011)

Stepper Switches are very old 50's and 60's telephone company switches in the office and old telecommunications equipment uses gold for good connections I thought. Most are made by western electric, automated eletric and some stromberg carlson.


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## Harold_V (Apr 5, 2011)

This is a classic example of why one should know and understand testing procedures. You can speculate endlessly and never draw the correct conclusion. 

A contact should be placed in a test tube, with a few drops of dilute nitric. Enough nitric should be used to totally consume anything that will dissolve. Should any solids remain, they may be gold. Separate the liquids from the solids (testing the solution for the presence of silver), then a drop of nitric and four drops of HCl should be introduced to the solids. After the acid has done its work, test the solution with stannous chloride. 

Harold


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## floppy (Jul 12, 2011)

I finally found out what these connector ends are made of. Before I found this site, I was using amalgmite to try and refine the ends of these connectors. Because I had no knowledge of chemicals or how to refine with them so amalgmite seemed like the answer. Boy lessons are sometimes hard learned. But anyways back to the main topic. I had gotten a 29 gram button of this connector ends, and sent it to Matt (fournines) along with the first bit of acid refined gold that I had just to see if the amalgmite button had any value. After running through the xrf machine turns out that the connector ends using amalgmite had given me 57.50% AU, 23.54% AG, and 4.68% PT. So I would say the the connector ends are pretty high quality. Who knows how much I wasted using that amalgmite crap. but all is not lost because I have alot more of those ends and more to get to. I just need to figure how to process with acid and see if the yield gets better. If anything refine to seperate the PM's to get a high quality end product. Well just thought I would let everyone know what those ends are so if one does run across them their worth snatching up.


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 12, 2011)

I assume the blade is a copper alloy. If so, you could trim it close, then dissolve the Cu (and the possible nickel point backing) with hot nitric, leaving the alloy untouched (assuming the alloy composition is what you quoted). You could then sell the alloy, as is, or refine it.


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## floppy (Jul 12, 2011)

I have tried using an AP mixture to dissolve the blade away from the alloy GSP and that seemed to work too, but it did take several days. Thank you for the suggestion though. Maybe I will try that and see if its any faster. On selling the alloy, that would be ok but I think this would be a perfect material to learn how to digest and seperate different PM's. I have several pounds of fingers to refine and sell so I would like to broaden my skills with these. I think I will be able to accomplish this with ample reading from both here and Hokes. And if I run in to any difficulties hopefully GRF will be able to help me a bit.


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## Oz (Jul 12, 2011)

floppy said:


> I think this would be a perfect material to learn how to digest and separate different PM's


I agree that this would be a great material to learn on, especially with the Pt present.

I personally would trim these close then inquart with silver, cornflake, nitric digest to remove the silver and Pt. Then AR process your remaining gold sponge.

Then you have the fun of separating your Pt and silver from the nitrate.

Let us know what you choose to do and keep us posted. It would be a great learning experience for many here to follow you through the process.


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## floppy (Jul 12, 2011)

Oz its gonna take some time for me to do this. I'm seriously not ready, I'm gonna have to really study for awhile before I feel comfortable. But when I'm ready i will gladly document the whole process for the forum. I think it will be fun and maybe help some others out later on. 8)


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## nickvc (Jul 13, 2011)

Floppy a great find and may I congratulate you on your admission that your not ready to start refining proper yet. I totally agree with Oz about this been a project that could teach many here on the forum and will watch this this thread with interest. If you photograph each step and post as you become more confident I'm sure that as you progress the experts here on the forum will be only too willing to step in and offer advice and help as the project proceeds.

Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread, Refining mixed Gold, Silver and Platinum bearing scrap so it would be easier to find?

Edited to add suggestion.


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## floppy (Aug 23, 2011)

Ok I have been doing lots and lots of reading and research on how to process this material using nitric. Also have done lots of reading on how to use and handle nitric safely.(By far the most important reading I have done.) I am going to give it a go at processing this myself, using Oz's suggestion metioned earlier in this post. I will document each step in detail (with pics) starting with the contacts I will be inquarting. I will start a new thread for this in the tutorial section. Hopefully this thread I start will help people learn to refine AU alloyed with other PM's. It will definetly be a learning experience for me. So I look foward to this new thread and any input along the way, good or bad. :|


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