# Noobie Success



## KHPH (May 15, 2018)

Well folks, it's not much and I still have to wash it off quite a bit more and smelt. But thanks to many of the helpful members here I have a small pile and more processing as I write this. Thanks to everyone! I don't have the photo uploaded anywhere so it is attached.


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## kernels (May 15, 2018)

Hi KHPH, great stuff getting this far, I assume you recovered these foils through the AP process? 

I don't want to sound negative, but that is a tiny tiny amount of foils, definitely not enough to refine and actually see some Gold drop.

When you say smelt, do you actually mean smelt, or do you mean melt ? If you intend to melt, then you would be well served to gather a lot more foils, then refine to get pure Gold, then do the melting.


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## KHPH (May 15, 2018)

This pile is from a very, very tiny AP batch of fingers and was only meant to serve as an experencial trial run. The foils shown in the picture would disappear into the air forever if I so much as looked at them too hard. They came from 30g of pretty well covered fingers in a 100ml beaker, basically nothing.

I have a little torch, MAP compatable not a propane microtorch, as well as a compact electric furnace a friend gave me that he no longer uses along with some supplies. I need to do more research and education before I fire that up, as well as acquiring more gold. I have some assorted copper and aluminum I may try out first to become acquainted with the machine.

I have a few other relatively small batches of fingers in AP that are much, much larger quantities than the batch that yielded the sample in the photo. I'm just taking it slow being a newcomer. Tiny pile of foils, BB, Button, Ingot, Fort Knox. I was just glad that after all the reading and acquisition of supplies and safety precautions that I actually lifted some foils and was able to see some gold.


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## nickvc (May 15, 2018)

As kernels pointed out it would pay you to save those foils and add them to the rest and then refine them, you are making the job of refining a lot harder unless you are going to use AR if you melt them.


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## johnny309 (May 15, 2018)

If this is the filter and you applied a good wash(plenty of water)...the most interesting part will be the "MUD" from that filter. Early days manufactures used as gold barrier Pd/Ag(70/30 or 80/20...they replaced in the 90-th by Ni or a Ni/Pd alloy).
So....money wise....if you have more of that material and my assumption are true....."MUD" is the true value.
Study ,learn,read and most important......: "Do not throw away anything".
Got it?

:?: :?: :idea: :idea: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:


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## anachronism (May 15, 2018)

johnny309 said:


> If this is the filter and you applied a good wash(plenty of water)...the most interesting part will be the "MUD" from that filter. Early days manufactures used as gold barrier Pd/Ag(70/30 or 80/20...they replaced in the 90-th by Ni or a Ni/Pd alloy).
> So....money wise....if you have more of that material and my assumption are true....."MUD" is the true value.
> Study ,learn,read and most important......: "Do not throw away anything".
> Got it?
> ...



Pd alloy as a barrier in fingers? Please tell me more. Where would these kind of fingers be found?


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## KHPH (May 15, 2018)

johnny309 said:


> If this is the filter and you applied a good wash(plenty of water)...the most interesting part will be the "MUD" from that filter. Early days manufactures used as gold barrier Pd/Ag(70/30 or 80/20...they replaced in the 90-th by Ni or a Ni/Pd alloy).
> So....money wise....if you have more of that material and my assumption are true....."MUD" is the true value.
> Study ,learn,read and most important......: "Do not throw away anything".
> Got it?
> ...



This is a separate filter I used just to pull my first gold foils from the actual filter out of my Buchner funnel to keep for the sake of having them. I have plenty of material and some of it is processing as we speak.

I am keeping all straining filters (102 discs) separate and I will process them once they stack up a bit. I do intend to process the mud, the leftover filters, the spent solution including keeping the extracted copper, and washing/refining all of my yields thoroughly. I'm currently waiting on a small shipment of Nitric to arrive, and I have nearly all the supplies needed to build a small sulfuric cell setup for deplating experiments. I'm on my second run of Hoke's book and I spend a ton of time on my free days reading here and elsewhere, soaking up video demonstrations, and exchanging messages with a couple helpful vets on this forum. I am an engineer by trade, and every detail of every step is very carefully considered before I attempt, ESPECIALLY safety and disposal procedures. That's the most important aspects of this as I learn, to me. So painstakingly and very slowly putting together 30g of well-covered fingers in a 100ml breaker of AP and seeing gold is just cause for celebration in my tiny world of PM recovery thus far. I'm very grateful to the replies containing advice and next step ideas here.

This little, dirty, assorted pile of tiny crumbs was posted simply to thank everyone here for providing the information and taking the time to help folks like myself just starting out in this as a hobby. If it pays a bill or two somewhere down the line, fantastic. My learning approach to this is slow, steady, celebrating small victories and building up slowly. I was hoping a complete and total prospective introductory member might see this and understand that it's good to start slow and small, even if it's to the most miniscule degree.

I appreciate the advice and direction, and I will continue to explore all of the valuable content here and elsewhere as I slowly scale up. Basically I just wanted to post a little tiny victory as a show of gratitude to everyone putting fourth the effort to help people experiment and learn correctly, safely and with the best results. I've had nothing but good experiences in my correspondence with various experiences members on this forum the past few weeks.

Not meant to show yield, purity or even great success. I just wanted to say, "Hey guys look, all of your hard work compiling and organizing this information helped a new guy make a tiny pile!". I do appreciate your advice without a doubt, and I am hopeful that my next upload will show a pure little BB, also the result of this community's efforts and guidance. This is the best place on the web to find your way into this venture, and I figured by the same standard it's the best place on the web to show my proud little dusty pile.


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## g_axelsson (May 15, 2018)

Looks nice! And more importantly, it sounds like you have a good plan and doing the research needed before trying it out.

And to all the naysayers here, it is possible to refine and melt a small button from this little material.  
I did it for just a tenth of that amount, less than 3g of fingers... 
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=23737

Well, you could say that I'm a small scale refiner. :mrgreen: 

Göran


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## jimdoc (May 15, 2018)

g_axelsson said:


> Well, you could say that I'm a small scale refiner. :mrgreen:
> Göran



That means you only need a small scale? A very small scale.


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## g_axelsson (May 15, 2018)

jimdoc said:


> g_axelsson said:
> 
> 
> > Well, you could say that I'm a small scale refiner. :mrgreen:
> ...


Lol, made my day! Yeah, my bathroom scale is too big for my refining experiments. :lol: 

Göran


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## johnny309 (May 15, 2018)

anachronism said:


> johnny309 said:
> 
> 
> > If this is the filter and you applied a good wash(plenty of water)...the most interesting part will be the "MUD" from that filter. Early days manufactures used as gold barrier Pd/Ag(70/30 or 80/20...they replaced in the 90-th by Ni or a Ni/Pd alloy).
> ...



RFT used this alot back in the '70(based in Germany company)....they used this formula mostly for pins...placing in Au/pd/ag for those. Back then ....everybody came with something different: LM741=140yp2......same IC...but different package.
As for would these fingers be found question.....do not use stereotype........they maybe used for 3 years and then use Ni as a barrier......
I found out that in 3 years of manufacture they used (by trial and error) 3 types of barriers......Pd/Ag.......Pd/Ni........Ni......
Test,test and test again...........
And leave clean water after all your "recovery".


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## cosmetal (May 15, 2018)

g_axelsson said:


> Looks nice! And more importantly, it sounds like you have a good plan and doing the research needed before trying it out.
> 
> And to all the naysayers here, it is possible to refine and melt a small button from this little material.
> I did it for just a tenth of that amount, less than 3g of fingers...
> ...



No.

You are an "artisanal" refiner. Therefore, your "just a tenth of that amount" is more valuable and "sexy".

Remember, sex sells!  

James


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## glorycloud (May 15, 2018)

KHPH said:


> They came from 30g of pretty well covered fingers in a 100ml beaker, basically nothing.



30grams / 453.592 grams per pound = 0.0661 pounds

0.0661 pounds x 1.6 grams of Au per pound of average fingers = 0.1058 grams of AU yield

0.1058 grams would be a VERY small BB of gold. 8)

(Worth about $4.40 at $1,293.00 per troy oz of Au)


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## Shark (May 16, 2018)

Off to a good start! 

I have processed many times using shot glasses, it makes pretty good practice. You just need to pay some very close attention to every step. Keep in mind some of the methods you may use along the way may not scale up very well.


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