# Odd methode produced brown powder, powder will not melt?



## ameturerefiner (Mar 18, 2013)

I want to start by saying i know i do not have a torch hot enough to melt anything over lead(by mp). But here is my question.
In another forum under chemistry I explained several experiments that i had done which yielded no gold. But two did yield something. 

In this case the solution was treated first with smb to no avail. Then NaOH was added to adjust PH, I had done this once before using oxalic acid both yielded a brown powder. I dried this out and hit it with the torch, I know NaOH has a MP of 604 degrees F. A Map gas torch should easily melt this, So i know it is not Lye. In fact no chemical present has a melting point over 650 degrees, So this must be at least some type of metal. Not only that but no fumes where released, if you burn a sulphide or chloride you will smell it. No gases came off this powder. So it must be elemental. Could this be gold?

I will continue my work, exposing it to various acids, To see what if any action results other then AR. But i would really like to hear back from a more experienced refiner. Thank you


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## NobleMetalWorks (Mar 19, 2013)

Do not subject your material to any acids, you don't put things into acids that you are not sure what their composition is.

You are all over the board, you are trying all kinds of things that you are not sure what their reactions will be. You need to stop what you are doing and read before attempting anything further. These are serious and potentially harmful reactions you are playing with. I posted on your other thread, please read it before you continue, and possibly seriously harm yourself or others or worse.

http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=17683

Scott


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## butcher (Mar 19, 2013)

ameturerefiner,
I agree with the answer you have been given, you need to study more to get a background understanding, and before you hurt yourself, or someone else.

To try and give you some kind of answer to the question here, when you put NaOH into a solution of dissolved metal acidic solution, you lower pH, most all of the metals in solutions as dissolved salts of metals will precipitate out of solution, this forms oxides or hydroxides of those metals, the neutral solution also becomes a salt of the acid previously used, this salt could also precipitate or need to be washed from the metal oxides, when you try to melt these metal oxides you may or may not be able to form metals again from them, some base metals may just oxidize under the torch and some burn up in smoke as deadly fumes, these base metal oxides may need a flux to melt them with, a reducing flux that changes the chemistry of the melt, taking oxygen from the metals and the torch flame to reduce the metal back to metals, also if you still have salts in these metals (even table salt NaCl, formed from the chloride acid and your NaOH) the gold with this salt, your gold would be oxidized as you tried to melt it and you would just burn your gold off in the smoke, silver will do the same with chlorides in a melt, my guess is you do have some metal oxide in that lump you tried to melt, but you also created a lot of toxic gases when you tried to melt it, and who knows you may have just burned off any gold in that lump of metal oxide.

The things you are trying, you need some background understanding before trying them, you need some study to understand what you are doing, otherwise all I see you doing is running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying things and getting no where. not really knowing where it is going.

You keep trying things you really do not understand yet and asking questions, questions that are very hard to answer, questions like if I through everything I find in a pot and cook it, then dump it out and salt it what have I made?
You need to back up slow down and relax, begin at the beginning, with the books, learn first before just throwing every thing in the pot, and hoping something good comes out of it.

You can learn this, it really is not hard if you do it in the proper way, but the way you are going about it, you really are not learning anything, except how to waste your time and loose your gold.

stop wasting your time, stop wasting our time, spend your time studying, spend your time with your nose in Hokes book, and reading the forum, if you continue to refuse to do that, and keep trying stupid things asking stupid questions, and wasting our time here on the forum maybe then it would be better for you, and us, if you were not here on this forum where people who wish to learn study, where people here have told you many times how to learn but you refuse to listen thinking yourself more clever, and continue to do dangerous experiments, if this is how you wish to proceed, then you may just be better off learning on some other forum where people just throw everything in a pot and hope something good comes out.
Put up your acids, but your solutions in a bucket with a bar of copper in a safe place, get out Hokes book and study, stop asking stupid questions wasting our time trying to help you if you will not listen to what we say.

Get out Hokes book and go from being an amateur-refiner, to a gold refiner who knows what he is doing, do this before we loose our patience with trying to help you learn to become a refiner.


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## g_axelsson (Mar 19, 2013)

butcher said:


> ... when you put NaOH into a solution of dissolved metal acidic solution, you lower pH ...


I guess you made a typo there, it should be "you raise pH", but you know that. Just adding this note for other people to read.

Good posting Butcher, I really admire your patience and the time you commit to help new members.

8) 

Göran


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## bswartzwelder (Mar 19, 2013)

As is usually the case with you, very good answer, Butcher. It seems there are quite a few newbies on the forum lately and they are all performing the same stupid mistakes. I too, was one of them not so long ago, so I can speak of my own past experience. I took the advice of the many true professionals here and stopped wasting and losing my values. I put them aside and started reading Hoke and the forum. All the while, I kept collecting things which had values in them. I hope that when the weather gets a little warmer I can start to process some of these things. 

My first mistake was to think that I could watch a few YouTube videos and become an expert overnight. Huge mistake. I now know that I learned enough to become truly dangerous. Thanks to the patience of everyone on this forum, I have seen the error(s) of my ways. Will I go on from here and never make a mistake? NO, it is almost a certainty that I will make more mistakes, but with the help of the forum, hopefully they will be small and corrected before losing too much or hurting someone.

There should be a big "STOP" sign on the forum where all newbies have to read it before they make the same mistakes most of us made. There seems to be an entitlement mentality where newbies think the people on the forum OWE them all the answers AND NOW. Well, all the answers are here. but no one can open the top of their head and just pour in the wealth of information. Like anything of value, it takes a committment of time and study to get the answers. Just my $0.02 worth.


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## ameturerefiner (Mar 19, 2013)

I did not find that to very helpful, just insulting. 

Either way it turned out to be iron, not sure how iron got in their though.
But as Edison once said when asked how he felt about failing to invent the light bulb over 2000 times
"I did not fail i learned 2000 ways to not make a light bulb"

You did not say anything i did not already know about the nature of acids,bases and salt.

As you can see i just joined so comments like "as we told you before" and "stop wasting our time" Were uncalled for. No one forced you to read it or respond.

As far as all the "newbies" mentioned can you blame them, Jobs are in short supply and gold prices are holding high

As far as the comment "entitlement mentality" I wouldn't call wanting to learn a trade an "entitlement mentality" I guess collage kids have an entitlement mentality too because they want to be taught or better yet scholarship recipients, It's not like someone is investing in their education or anything. It seems like some of you more experienced people are just worried about the influx of competition, what was that about entitlement again?

Thanks for nothing guys, I see i will just have to keep studying on my own doing my own test and learning both metallurgy as well as general chemistry until i get it right. This is clearly not a friendly crowd. :evil:


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## NobleMetalWorks (Mar 19, 2013)

ameturerefiner said:


> As far as the comment "entitlement mentality" I wouldn't call wanting to learn a trade an "entitlement mentality" I guess collage kids have an entitlement mentality too because they want to be taught or better yet scholarship recipients, It's not like someone is investing in their education or anything. It seems like some of you more experienced people are just worried about the influx of competition, what was that about entitlement again?
> 
> Thanks for nothing guys, I see i will just have to keep studying on my own doing my own test and learning both metallurgy as well as general chemistry until i get it right. This is clearly not a friendly crowd. :evil:



You are not attempting to search for any information on your own, on this forum. There is literally hundreds and hundreds of years of accumulated information here, all at your disposal, for free, if you just simply use the search function.

The comment about college kids is not a valid argument, let me explain why. When you attend college, your scholastic experience is dependent upon your ability to learn what is being taught. The key parts to this equation you seem to be totally overlooking is that "college kids" are required to take some courses before more advanced courses. Also, and this is what I have been harping about, in college you are required to purchase the correct books for the courses you are taking, and you are also, and I know this must seem like a novel idea for you, required to READ these books. To learn what is required often takes not just one class and one semester, but literally many courses, many books, and several YEARS. You are attempting to cram all this into one post, and asking people to tell you exactly what to do when it takes months of learning and even after, much longer before you become good enough at it to start making a profit.

You do seem to think that by just asking a question, you are entitled to an answer before you do what you should have done first, which is to read and learn before attempting to do ANYTHING. Here is what you said in another thread:



ameturerefiner said:


> Can anyone give me useful info not just read hokes book
> 
> Can anyone give me useful information. Everyone keeps saying read read read. That's fine i like reading, I do read. But i need experienced help.



What really concerns me is when you state things like this:



ameturerefiner said:


> I really want to learn this process and am reading hokes book, But I have also sunk some cash into learning this and really need a return soon.



I read Hoke in a day, you could already have read Hoke, and you already would know what the answers to your questions are. You seem to be in a hurry, and also seem to want to just be told what to do so you can make money fast. This is not a fast money making scheme. The people here that freely give advice are not here to give you recipes for you to follow so you can quickly turn your mistake into profit. You made the mistake of investing in something you had no experience in, without reading the proper material or understanding the processes. And now, you want to hurry and precipitate your gold so you can get a return.

You refuse to do as you were guided to do, and continue to ask for help.

You refuse to add pictures so your questions can be answered.

You refuse to help yourself so that others might be able to help you more.

You have up to this point, refused all help offered you, and instead demand that people give you information in a form you want, so that you can get money fast.

No, that is not the way we do things here. No we will not give you information that could cause you to harm yourself or worse, harm others around you. No you don't get to demand, beg, plead or even ask nicely for an easy way out, or for people to hold your hand and explain exactly what you need to do so you can quickly make a return on the money you invested in material. We are not here to hold your hand, baby you, coddle you, feed you a bottle, do the work for you, we all had to learn this way, it is the right way. 

You are being told the proper way to learn, why not take that advice to heart and simply do it?

Scott


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## solar_plasma (Mar 19, 2013)

> You did not say anything i did not already know about the nature of acids,bases and salt.



You and I do well in realizing, that by all theory do know nothing compared with these guys about reality. We do well in telling about our attempts,sothey have the chance to warn us before we do something really stupid. My occupation let me easiliy feel more safe, than I am in fact. I use really dangerous stuff at work, but there I know what I'm doing. Electronic scap is quite different, we start with something I never would do at work: an at least complete unknown complex system with at least unknown amounts of contents. I've tried AR on pure gold leaves,knowing all the typical beginners failures, I calculated the amounts, that were complety known, nevertheless I came to do the same failures I did before and got a not perfect result like I had expected. so don't be so huffy. The tone could appear roughly, take it as respect for you as a person, when they answer at all. Find the failure in how you ask, what you are doing, but not in the guys answering to you. Years of apprenticeship are no years of mastership. We do stupid things, and when they say how it is, it's a kind of respect. And they care about us. If someone says: damn stop it! He do not say: bloody idiot! Critics on someones attempts are something different than critics on your person. Don't be too proud. You and I haven't merited it yet, maybe in 40 years, than we have MAYBE earned the right to be a bit self assure, proud of our profits and difficult. You and I can be glad if they answer at all!

I wonder how people get drilled in your land. In my country you would have a hard time if you got aggrieved each time you get harder critics from those who are more experienced.


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## butcher (Mar 20, 2013)

Göran,
Thank with the pH thing I do not know why but I often make that same mistake of saying things wrong or backwards (I do know the difference) too bad we do not have a mistake check, like we have a spell check, so I could edit all of my mistakes before I post..


ameturerefiner,
I did not mean to offend you, but I did try to get your attention, I am trying to help you the best way I know how, How many ways can we try to tell you the same thing?

I thought I had a thick skull, well I do, and I am also stubborn (like an ole mule).

I have also made the same dumb mistakes, trying things I knew nothing about, loosing gold, gold I wish I had, and that I needed badly to pay bills, thinking myself clever, But I also listened to those here on the forum that understood how to recover and refine, I paid close attention to what they said, and studied, and soon began to see how foolish I was loosing gold, I slowly began to learn more and loose less gold, I am still learning, I still do not know it all that well, and so if someone tells me I am doing it wrong I will listen and try to see what they are telling me, if they point me to something to study I will. And the more I learn the more I find I do not know and need to learn. 


We are just trying to get you to see, what we have all learned here, not upset you.
This is not simple like you think it is.
Although it is not that hard either, but it does take a lot of learning to be able to do it, it is not something you will learn through experimenting without study. 

I could have spent a Day with a professional refiner watching what he done, but when I got home I would not have been able to do it without having the understanding he had, He could of sit down and written out explicate details of the process, and when I got home I still would not have been able to do it without study and the understanding he had, he could have told me everything I done wrong, and I still would not have been able to do it without seeing myself what was wrong, every time I recover or refine there can be differences, differences in the scrap, metals, and reactions, every process can introduce its own set of problems or challenges, it is only until we understand them can we deal with them, it is not only study we need, it is not only practice we need , it is not only skills, it is not only understanding, it is all of this and more that make a good refiner, these we must begin someplace to learn, one of the first places is studying good reliable information, like you will find in Hoke’s book, and on the forum by those who have learned before us.

There are many hidden dangers.
You can struggle through trial and error, or you can make it simple.

Edison was inventing something (the light bulb), that did not exist before him, or at least one that would work well, do you really think He was so stupid that He would have spent his life experimenting making thousands of mistakes to learn something that was already invented or procedures known for thousands of years before him, would he have made 2,000 mistakes before he reached over and turned on the light, that was already in his room invented long before he was born, so that he could read Hokes book?, or would he had just Picked up Hoke's book and studied it, learning what others before him have done, and learning how to do it right, so his time was better spent not wasting his life on useless experiments that just proved one thing, that it was futile to experiment on trying to figure out a known process, one known to work and work well, I Know Edison researched everything he could find, before he tried something, He did not just experiment blindly, he was not trying to learn something from his experiments he could have easily have learned from a simple book or reading the forum, If Edison did not study (and study hard), all of the material he could find, before experimenting, if he was in so much rush to make money and did not take time to study, we would have never had a light bulb, at least from him.


How do we get you to understand? You are experimenting in the dark, and all you have to do is read Hokes and the forum and turn on that light, so you can see what you are doing.

We have given you a method to learn, and understand the dangers, and to keep you and others around you safe, we Have all given you the best advice we can, the same advice we followed to learn by. It is up to you if you wish to learn or not, I think you do want to learn, I also think if you could just begin on the right path you would do very well, but from the questions You have asked, and things you have said I think at this point you are on the wrong path, yes you may be able to dig to China but why not just take the boat, (the ride is free)?

Do you really think I would spend my time trying to get you to understand if I did not care to help you learn? Do you think these other members would spend there time to try and help, if they did not truly wish to help you?

If I were not going to listen to someone’s advice on a problem I had, I would not ask his or her advice. If they could do something I could not do, or did not understand, and they told me to try this or that first, and stop what I was doing, I would try this or that and stop what I was doing, if they could do it, and I could not, or was having trouble, and they told me I was doing it all wrong, I would listen and listen to their instructions on how to learn to do it right.
If they said begin by studying Hoke’s book, I did begin reading Hoke’s, in fact I have been rereading it over the years now.


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## nickvc (Mar 20, 2013)

The guys really are trying to help you to recover and refine your gold and save you countless hours of failed experimentation and the following frustration. There is no simple one stop method to refine gold especially from e scrap as it contains many variables requiring different approaches to recover and then refine the values and unfortunately no one has the time to give you step by step processes for every given type of material but if you read and research you will find it all here on the forum for free and it will be accurate and correct.
Did you notice that I said recover and refine and that's the first point for you to understand, it's two processes not one, if you try to dissolve all the metals you can and frequently will cause yourself problems. Did you also notice I said values this is because there is more than just gold in much e scrap, silver, palladium is usually in there too and as you have money invested in this do you want to throw those away?
This is a huge subject and I doubt anyone knows it all so bite the bullet and get reading if you want to be successful, there are no easy ways to become a refiner without the correct knowledge you will be wasting time and money endlessly.


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## bswartzwelder (Mar 20, 2013)

What I was attempting to get across, is that WE WERE ALL NEWBIES at one time. Even the professional refiners had to learn what they know from somewhere. I definitely place myself in the class of newbies. I joined in October 2011 and still have not mixed up a batch of AR or HCl/Chlorox. I put myself at the front of the list of people making mistakes because I made many of them myself. I do not consider myself to be a refiner (yet), but hopefully that day is not too far in the future. You'll know when I start asking more questions. 

But, one thing I have learned is patience. I will not rush into something without knowing what to expect and what could go wrong. I have spent the time I've been on the forum reading. I have read Hoke. I do not yet understand everything she says, so I need to read it again. I do not expect anyone on the forum to take me by the hand through all the steps and babysit me like a child. I do have problems using the search engine, but have been more successful as of late. I still have a long way to go.

Thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way.


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## nickvc (Mar 20, 2013)

bswartzwelder said:


> Thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way.
> 
> In truth you have helped yourself, by studying and reading your knowledge base has increased, its down to any member to seek their own answers and to learn all they can at the feet of the masters here on the forum. Few people ever master every process or method but by at least understanding it's principles you can at least try to achieve success or find methods that work for you, there are set rules for chemistry but there are also frequently other routes to the same end.
> I'm sure that when you actually start you will enjoy success and I look forward to seeing your first buttons and later bars.


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