# Using hot sand in a pan



## Metalrain (Jul 3, 2010)

If I was to use the hot sand in a pan method to depopulate PCBs would the metals in the solder be recoverable? ..or would it be next to impossible to separate the sand from the lead, tin, and silver? 

I would like to recover the lead for use in reloading. 
I would like to recover the silver because it's silver.
I would like to recover the tin because I want a tin ingot.

Yea, this is my first post. I joined a while back and quickly learned that I needed to gather more gold bearing e-scrap before I worried about refining them. I'm getting closer. I've got about a pound of fingers, a pound of pins, a couple dozen cpu's and a gallon can full of assorted IC's, flatbacks, and eproms. I've been reading the forum for the last few weeks and realized that there was stuff on the boards that might contain values that I was over looking. The flatbacks where one such item so I started back thru my boxes of boards gathering more goodies. 

One more thing, I'm over 50 and have a very thick skin and can squeeze a dime till it bleeds. ..or in other words I'm a cheap old fart who can laugh at myself. So fire away.

Thanks, Tim


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## butcher (Jul 4, 2010)

silver and lead should be no problem to recover, tin I think would be harder, you can get it but back to tin metal may be a challenge.

there is an industrial process of melting lead and silver and adding zink to collect the silver from the lead. I would probably choose this over chemical seperation. 
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&&sa=X&ei=9RAwTLaZBJOknQez2Mj6Aw&ved=0CA8QBSgA&q=Parkes+process&spell=1


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## Anonymous (Jul 4, 2010)

Metalrain said:


> If I was to use the hot sand in a pan method to depopulate PCBs would the metals in the solder be recoverable? ..or would it be next to impossible to separate the sand from the lead, tin, and silver?
> 
> I would like to recover the lead for use in reloading.
> I would like to recover the silver because it's silver.
> ...



Hey,
Welcome aboard, WV, were at? I am in Triadelphia.

If you dont use acids to get the solder off, you could get the solder as metal I do not think it would be worth seperating but could still cast some target fodder with it.

Jim


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## Metalrain (Jul 4, 2010)

Thanks for the replies guys.

I was concerned that once I had sand mixed wth the solder it would be hard to seperate. 

I had tried heated the boards directly on a hot plate but it didn't work out too well. 

I've read up a little on refining tin and it doesn't look like I'll be able to do that any time soon. I'll just stock pile the lead-tin mix for now.

Jim, I'm in the eastern panhandle. Points WV, no stores and the post office is only open 4 hours a day. It's been many years since I've been in the northern panhandle. I think I've still have some relatives up there around Wheeling.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 4, 2010)

Metalrain said:


> Thanks for the replies guys.
> 
> I was concerned that once I had sand mixed wth the solder it would be hard to seperate.
> 
> ...




When the mix of metal is heated the sand will float on top.

A hot plat is probably not going to work too well. One of the users her (Glorycloud I think) uses a hair dryer.

I wouldn't try to use this for casting bullets. Although when I use to cast bullets I used wheel weight's and mixed tin/antimony in with my lead to increase the hardness of the bullet along with heat treating.


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## butcher (Jul 4, 2010)

something to think about,
pan black sand concentrate, roast it, use it for your sand bath to remove solder, once loaded to point of being useless, remove lead by heating as much as possible the black sand can eventually be smelted for value and cupel the lead button.


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## copperkid_18 (Jul 4, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> One of the users here (Glorycloud I think) uses a hair dryer.


 How does it get that hot???


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## butcher (Jul 4, 2010)

a heat gun will melt solder, I never tried hair dryer but they are the same principle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder


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## Anonymous (Jul 10, 2010)

If yer hair dryer gets hot enough to melt solder, better keep it away from yer hair!


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## glorycloud (Jul 10, 2010)

I mainly use the hair dryer to remove heat sinksfrom CPU's.
I use the heat gun to get some chips off of boards.


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