# Wooo Hooo!! My first button!



## AuMINIMayhem (Jun 21, 2007)

Hey guys, I know I sort of dropped off the face of the planet for a bit there.. anyways, I've been working like crazy but I finally got a chance to do some refining. I recovered this gold from some scrap which turned out to have some plating on it and some various odds and ends pieces of gold filled wire and stuff. I melted it all down together to drastically bring the karat down and then made some home-made AR using the great techniques Catfish discussed with me and a couple of ammonia and then water rinses..(probably should have taken pictures of the brown powder,but I wasn't confident it was gold until I had it melted down for me. In the midst of it all I couldn't find the cupels Lazersteve so generously sent me :?  (I'm in the middle of moving out of my house.. yes, the lovely Mrs. AuMINIMayhem and I are no longer an item.. another reason I disappeared for a bit.).. to make a long story short (too late) I took it to the local jeweler who made an engagement ring for me a couple years back and he gladly melted it down free of charge for me while I watched (I gave him a $5 tip just because he was so nice about it). He also did a little scratch test with it and discovered it was *just over the 22 karat mark and weighs 2.2 grams!! * (Nice! considering nothing I started out with was over 10k, even before melting it all down into ugly little BB's of very little karat value..GSP, your technique for making shot worked out excellent, I built a unit I can describe on another thread soon, based on your story if you'd like.) ) YAYYYY!! I finally did it! Sorry about the picture size.. I'm just so excited to finally have some success that I can show for once. :shock: :lol:  

so without further ado...

[img::]http://a239.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/110/l_3c41ae288d3601f0a98dbc3431f17496.jpg[/img]

[img::]http://a260.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/125/l_dc983c24b659977ba9da438a7db5b94b.jpg[/img]

sorry the quality isn't fantastic but you should see the crystalization of it, very nice..

Thank you guys for all the help and answering all my stupid questions! I'm finally on my way to being able to call myself a "casual" refiner. Now I just have to practice and work on getting my methods down to where it costs me *less* than what I retrieve..


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## Noxx (Jun 21, 2007)

Good job my friend ! You're in the good way. If you want to, you could reprocess your nugget in AR again to make it very pure.


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## AuMINIMayhem (Jun 21, 2007)

Hey, thanks Noxx! Yeah, I'm calling it my "thousand dollar button", because when I add up everything I bought to get into this, that's about what I spent.. kiln, crucibles, tongs, goggles, apron, chemicals and the junk material itself.. I got a looooong way to go before this is "profitable", but now that I've figured out some of the things I was doing wrong (such as not neutralizing the AR with urea prior to precip, etc.) I should have drastically reduced my costs and losses. As far as "re-refining" goes, I'll try that on the next one, this one represents a huge victory for me and will stay just as she is..  imprefections and all.. (btw, the dark spots are some borax/flux particles.. I wasn't going to bother having the jeweler try to burn it off as he did me a huge favor in the first place by melting it down for free for me.. he was just as excited about it as I was.. :lol:


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## catfish (Jun 21, 2007)

Hi Derek:

Congratulations on your first nugget. You are now hooked on the greatest hobby I know of. If for some reason you ever want to get all the slag off your nuggets, just dump the molten gold in sulfuric acid. This will clean it very good.

I don’t blame you for keeping the nugget, I just wish I had kept my first one, but didn’t.

If you need any help, all you have to do is ask someone and I am sure they will come to your aid. We are very lucky to have such an awesome amount of talent on this forum and the best of all, they don’t mind sharing their knowledge and experiences.

Have a good day,

Catfish


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## Noxx (Jun 21, 2007)

I did keep my first nugget ! But it's not like it was at the first time. When I have nothing to do, I rerefine my nuggets to get the purer quality. I probably have refined this nugget like 5 times lol.


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## lazersteve (Jun 21, 2007)

Great job Derek!

Like Noxx said, you can always refine it again to improve the quality. I sold my first nugget on ebay. I don't miss it a bit. :lol: 

Steve


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## jimdoc (Jun 21, 2007)

There will be more to add to your thousand dollar button.
I hope to see many more, that will make that thousand dollars and all the knowledge you soak up here is the best investment you ever made.
Now that you have that behind you, all you need to do is line up a bunch
of free or reasonably priced material to keep adding to your total.
Great job. Hope to share my first button pic soon.
Jim


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## AuMINIMayhem (Jun 21, 2007)

lazersteve said:


> I sold my first nugget on ebay. I don't miss it a bit. :lol:
> 
> Steve



I was wondering where you were.. LOL!.. how did I know you were going to say that?.. :lol: :lol: 


jimdoc.. I've got some plans coming to fruition for finding stuff... but so far, I've been doing rather well hitting up yard sales and the local recycling center (they have a table where people can put give away stuff that is just this side of too good to throw away..)... I recently put an ad in the local paper simply stating "Did you know new laws effect how you are able to dispose of electronics? It may cost you to throw away that old computer or electronic device. I'll dispose of your old electronics free of charge. I'll save you the trip and pick them up at your door." etc. etc.. the responses have been promising.. 

by the way, yes NH has some new disposal regualations for electronics.. I think most states are going that way... it actually costs about 10 bucks to drop off a computer at the local recycling centers.. sheesh!


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