# First button



## cvillan (Aug 12, 2012)

After a few months of small batches to see if I can recover and refine without killing myself (I still wont touch Nitric) I decided to finally melt what powder I had accumulated. Its from a mix of gold fingers, touchpads, lcd controllers, gold traced cards and fingerless RAM that had gold contacts on the back of the board. Still has some borax on it though. You can see how smooth and shiny it is on the right side. I was to excited and needed to take pictures asap. 1.09 grams after I got the borax off. Tomorrow I take it down to a friends jewelry shop to have him send it off with his scrap. He offered me a great deal. I only pay a percentage by weight of the assaying costs which is awesome because he usually sends a few pounds at a time. I figure just over a gram is an ok gamble on someone I trust and an assayer he trusts. I do really wish I could keep it but when I started I told myself I couldn't start hoarding my gold until I'd payed myself back for the chemicals and equipment.


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## tenten (Aug 12, 2012)

Nice
What kind of lcd controllers?


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## cvillan (Aug 12, 2012)

The long skinny PCB on the back of the LCD panel from laptops. Somewhere I've got my notes on the yields but I do remember it wasn't worth the effort. I was quite pleased with the RAM with the gold contacts on the back. After cutting the fingers and removing the flatpacks I had a pound, and it gave up .3 grams. Not the best but not bad considering it only took a few hours to process. Now if only I had someone nearby I could bring the flatpacks to...


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## sebass (Aug 13, 2012)

Nice .we waiting more buttons. With more then 1 grams...work. and work.. never stops your dreams.


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## cvillan (Aug 13, 2012)

So I forgot my buddys shop is closed on Monday and I went down to a pawnshop just to see what they would offer. Upfront they told me what I already knew, they couldn't give me near what its worth only 60%. But he did test it for me. For the acid test he only had up to 18k. That didnt tell him much so he put it in some electogadget. He said it only goes up to 22k and it maxed out. That made me happy considering its my first button. Now I really cant wait to get the official number back once my buddy sends it out with his stuff. Also I found out the pawnshop has a ton of old computers in the back they need to get rid of. They were closing when I got there so I'm headed back later this week to check it out.


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## joem (Aug 13, 2012)

Awesome job for such an early forum starter.


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## Nickpearl (Sep 30, 2012)

Good job. What is your concern about Nitric? I use it all the time, along with HCL, but mostly for initial breakdown of gold-filled.


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## cvillan (Oct 8, 2012)

I just dont feel that I have a set up where I can use it safely, nor to i trust myself with anything that might explode in my face. Teenage me learned about the amazing power of explosions and was very lucky to survive unscathed.


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## Clneal2003 (Jul 5, 2014)

I just retrieved the gold from my first drop. I plan to rerun it through hcl CL but would hate to lose any. It's a fine black powder... Some chunks but mostly fine powder. Let me know if this looks right.


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## Clneal2003 (Jul 5, 2014)

Side photo for depth.


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## glorycloud (Jul 5, 2014)

That looks right for just having been precipitated. After doing what is referred to here
as "Harold's gold washed", you will see how the powder becomes much lighter in color
as it loses impurities dragged down with the gold during the drop.

Good job so far! 8)


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## g_axelsson (Jul 5, 2014)

Looks very dirty as it is so black. Any gold floating on the surface could be knocked down with a spray bottle. 

When I get a drop like this I can usually dissolve it in some HCl + Cl, it doesn't take much and it's done in just a couple of minutes, then heated a bit to drive off excess Cl and dropped. Often within an hour and it is so much easier to wash after the second drop that you both save time to do it and get a cleaner result.

... now you're hooked! 8) 

Göran


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## Clneal2003 (Jul 5, 2014)

g_axelsson said:


> Looks very dirty as it is so black. Any gold floating on the surface could be knocked down with a spray bottle.
> 
> When I get a drop like this I can usually dissolve it in some HCl + Cl, it doesn't take much and it's done in just a couple of minutes, then heated a bit to drive off excess Cl and dropped. Often within an hour and it is so much easier to wash after the second drop that you both save time to do it and get a cleaner result.
> 
> ...



100% hooked! Now I need more stuff with gold in and on it!


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## Clneal2003 (Jul 6, 2014)

Washed with hot hcl and distiller h2o twice and then redigested in hcl CL. I bought this little glass from michaels the hobby store and look how the precipitate left a neat "carnival glass" look to the jar. It almost looks like the jar was lightly electroplated. I'm letting sit tonight and I'll decant and rinse again tomorrow... Hopefully melt my first button tomorrow night.


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## Clneal2003 (Jul 15, 2014)

Update on second digest after first full wash. I'm just now starting the second round of washing. My first round of black powder finally dropped as brown chunks in the second drop. I must have had some nasty karat gold for this cuz I'm going to need a third and maybe fourth digestion cycle with full washes. I'm going to let the batch rest in hcl overnight and check in the morning.


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## Clneal2003 (Jul 19, 2014)

Finally! First tiny little refined button/bb thingy! That's so much better looking than a little pile of broken 10k!


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## butcher (Jul 19, 2014)

Nice little seed gold.
Plant it, and care for it, so it will grow.
It looks like your study and work has given you the seed gold, the first gold seed which can grow to a fruitful plant, and as this seed plants more desire in you, to farm even more. 
Even the largest trees start from tiny seeds, making these small seeds, valuable when planted and cared for in the right soil, like these small seedlings that take time to grow to large trees, the education of learning also takes time and work, your little seed gold is the first fruit of your labor, well earned, and much more valuable than its content in gold metal.
Thanks for show us the picture of your pretty seed gold, now we can call you a gold farmer.


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## Claudie (Jul 19, 2014)

Looks nice, well done!


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## Clneal2003 (Aug 6, 2014)

Added a bit more. It's no longer a BB. It now turns into a single shot. This can get really addictive. How long do other people save their FILTERS and SILVER JAR before processing them. I'm now waiting on my next shipment of gold and find I want to keep processing batches.


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