# Goofy Ideas for building a Filtration System



## Anonymous (Jul 5, 2010)

First off I wished I had Harold_V's resources when he built his filter press, since I do not came up with some ideas of my own to build a reasonably efficient filter.

My first choice is this arrangement, a center drum supported on ceramic bearings that has quadrillion holes drilled into the walls to permit the liquor to escape while the drum is spinning.

The smaller heavy wall plastic drum fits inside a larger heavy walled plastic pipe having a bottom press fit into place then having an O-ring to finalize the seal a bung to drain the liquor of course would be added for convenience. 

The whole rig would be set into a bell crank similar to what you see on a cement mixer so that the filter could be tipped to empty the spent contents. Most of you have seen those large truck air filters that come in all sizes and lengths, I figure to purchase some long ones then cut them apart for the filter paper, line the inside of the small drum with it. 

I pulled an old filter apart this afternoon and once you stretch out that accordion there's miles of filter paper making the cost negligible. 

My second choice would be to turn that smaller heavy walled pipe into a cylinder with a piston with an O-Ring to complete the seal, then have my filter plate on the bottom using filter paper from the wine arts store. There is of course a number of ways to force the piston down forcing the liquor through the filter.

On another thought that same set up could be capped with no piston inside then using air pressure to force the liquor through the filter.

Running out of ideas here but here's the last of them and the least desirable, heavy walled plastic pipe with filter plat affixed to the bottom, press fit with an O-Ring to seal the rig, then affix a vibrator to the outside of the pipe to keep everything inside fluid. I'm not really wild on this one.

Anyone out there with a 4 axis cnc rig willing to drill some holes in a 10 inch diameter heavy walled plastic pipe.

Best Regards
Gill


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 5, 2010)

> On another thought that same set up could be capped with no piston inside then using air pressure to force the liquor through the filter.



I feel this is going to be your best bet.

However if you can't find any heavy walled PVC pipe I think I have some 10" SCH80 grey pipe if you want to pay the shipping.


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## Anonymous (Jul 5, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> > On another thought that same set up could be capped with no piston inside then using air pressure to force the liquor through the filter.
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Very generous of you Barren Realms 007, this order was filled this afternoon a couple of guys working on the addition to the Hog plant cut me off 4 feet of 12" with a wall thickness of 0.786", two union guys on the clock using a ATV crane to relocate the pipe for cutting, time about 45 minutes - cost free.

I also have the smaller heavy walled pipe on hand plus some heavy sheet from 1" to 1 3/4" which I think maybe nylon, plus a large round 12" x 8" to turn my pistons from.

All I need know are some bearings and fiberglass or carbon fiber rod stock to use as shafting for the drum to spin.

Best Regards
Gill


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## Anonymous (Jul 6, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> > On another thought that same set up could be capped with no piston inside then using air pressure to force the liquor through the filter.
> 
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> I feel this is going to be your best bet.




Forgot to mention the crap I need to filter is milled catalytic comb saturated with a pregnant AR presumably with PGM's, nice orange color.

On Steve's video the solutions look green, thinking he may have some iron from using the die grinder to open the cans.

Would like to hear from Oz on what colors his solutions are coming out as or anyone else that is processing cats.

The material I processed is from milled cats so the mixture is homogenized, not only from one type of cat.

Stage two of plan one. Load of filters recovered from a guy that cleans em for a living.

Regards
G


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 6, 2010)

What kind of plant are the filters out of? What might they have in them.


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## Anonymous (Jul 6, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> What kind of plant are the filters out of? What might they have in them.



Wheat chaff, I'll blow them out before using them.


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## lazersteve (Jul 6, 2010)

Gill,

My solutions are green from the chlorine and/or palladium. The cats on the video were opened with a blow torch by someone else.

I've seen red, orange, yellow, green, red brown, and brown solutions from cats. Don't get too hung up on the solution color, follow your DMG and stannous tests to determine whats cooking.

Steve


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## qst42know (Jul 6, 2010)

Gill

Didn't you just find a newish washing machine? 

Doesn't it have a plastic basket in a plastic drum?


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## Anonymous (Jul 6, 2010)

qst42know said:


> Gill
> 
> Didn't you just find a newish washing machine?
> 
> Doesn't it have a plastic basket in a plastic drum?



Yes and the machine weighs half of what I expected when loading it onto my truck. It's mostly plastic, the wife has spoken for the machine. It did cross my mind but thought there would be metal clamps holding the rubber diaphragm in place under the drum like in the older GE washing machines. For all I know the manufacture used nylon snap ties in place of the stainless steel clamps used years ago to cut costs.

Regards
G


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## Anonymous (Jul 6, 2010)

lazersteve said:


> Gill,
> 
> My solutions are green from the chlorine and/or palladium. The cats on the video were opened with a blow torch by someone else.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the reply Steve, the colors had me freaked out, noobs always think they've done something amiss.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 6, 2010)

gustavus said:


> Barren Realms 007 said:
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> > What kind of plant are the filters out of? What might they have in them.
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I got you that is the filter material you are going to use for this. Blowing/washing you will still have some chaff left but it shouldn't hurt anything. I never have found a way to get all the chaff out of a filter, it's worse than tying to clean gold.


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## Anonymous (Jul 6, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> gustavus said:
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I brought these filter home for a trial out, I'm only after the filter paper once you cut the ends off and stretch out the accordion the dust and crap comes off much easier had you blown the filter with air while it was still intact.

Once I have the rig made I'll post some pictures with some of the performance data.

Cheers
G


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## qst42know (Jul 6, 2010)

gustavus said:


> qst42know said:
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If you run into another eliminate the agitator post and cover the hole with a machined piece of plastic (uhmw). 

I understand not having to buy filter paper by recycling the used filter cartridges but, would a poly filter bag be easier to fit and fasten?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 6, 2010)

gustavus said:


> Barren Realms 007 said:
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Do me a favor and take some of that filter material and put in some water for a couple of days and see what happens to it. Please.


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## Anonymous (Jul 6, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> gustavus said:
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Will do, water and another in AR, you'll have the results of our experiment tomorrow evening.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 6, 2010)

gustavus said:


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Ok thanks. Seems to me I might have run into filter paper similar to this coming apart because of water and I'm just curious if my memory is correct. Hopefully I am wrong.


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## Anonymous (Jul 6, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> gustavus said:
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Your wrong, I'm doing the water to humor you, the AR for me.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 6, 2010)

gustavus said:


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I hope you are right. 8)


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## Anonymous (Jul 6, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> gustavus said:
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I apologize form my black humor, the first one I dissembled was mush. I'll have to come up with something different for filter material.

Best Regards
Gill


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 6, 2010)

That quote was getting too long. 

Are you saying the first one you worked with was mush or the one you put in water was mush?


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## Anonymous (Jul 7, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> That quote was getting too long.
> 
> Are you saying the first one you worked with was mush or the one you put in water was mush?



Filter looked good inside the wire mesh cage, then fell apart in my hands after I removed it - mush. They were stored outdoors. 

I really thought I was onto a winner here for cheap filter paper.

Best Regards
Gill


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## Harold_V (Jul 7, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> That quote was getting too long.
> 
> Are you saying the first one you worked with was mush or the one you put in water was mush?


Doesn't really matter, the sequence. Such filters are not intended to be used wet, so they won't hold up to any kind of abuse.

I suggest anyone seeking to do any kind of power filtering (aside from using Buchner funnels, with vacuum) seek a supplier of filter materials that are used in filter presses. They are made to be used under pressure, and are resistant to water. They come in a myriad of configurations and material types. That was the source of the cloth I used in my anode basket for my silver cell, as well as the filter media I used in my filter press. Silver cell material was cotton, while the filter press material was made of polypropylene. Very rugged stuff, and reusable over and over. 

Harold


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## Anonymous (Jul 7, 2010)

Thank you Harold, I found a supplier of filter membranes in Kent Washington and I'll be on the blower to them in the morning.

http://www.sterlitech.com/


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 7, 2010)

Harold_V said:


> Barren Realms 007 said:
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The filter press we used was the same desighn and material construction as yours and the filter clothes were virtualy indistuctable. And when one did go bad it was quick to change out the cloths were held on by tie strings on the outside of the plates. There were gaskets and orings on the plates but there was so much pressure applied that there was little leaking.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 7, 2010)

gustavus said:


> Barren Realms 007 said:
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And I was thinking you had found something and I would be wrong. Sorry to hear that.


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## Anonymous (Jul 7, 2010)

Spoke with the filter people this morning, what I need to know now is which micron size membrane should I be be using, the idea is to use a spinning drum such as a spin dryer would extract water from a wet wash - clothing.

The media being extracted is pregnant AR from milled cats, the milled cats are still reasonably coarse but does contain some finer particles showing as fine dust. It would stand to reason to remove as much garbage as possible before going onto the net stage.

A suggestion on Micron size from those of you that have used these membranes would be appreciated..

Best Regards
Gill


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## lazersteve (Jul 7, 2010)

I use polypropylene cloth in my silver cell anode basket and also in my sulfuric cell at times. It's really great stuff, you can boil it in AR and it doesn't phase it.

I like the way you can form various shapes with it and weld it using a little heat.

Steve


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 8, 2010)

gustavus said:


> Spoke with the filter people this morning, what I need to know now is which micron size membrane should I be be using, the idea is to use a spinning drum such as a spin dryer would extract water from a wet wash - clothing.
> 
> The media being extracted is pregnant AR from milled cats, the milled cats are still reasonably coarse but does contain some finer particles showing as fine dust. It would stand to reason to remove as much garbage as possible before going onto the net stage.
> 
> ...



IMHO unless you have some pressure inside the drum to help push the fluid out once the filter starts trapping the dirt and stopping up it will stop filtering and the fluid will just stay in the drum. 

I have used vacume drum's to filter solution's and this might be a better route in the use of a drum.

As far as the screen size of the filter I have forgotten what we used I seem to remember a 200 mesh. 

The nice thing about a filter press is even if the mesh is too big once it starts catching material the flitering gets better in that it traps more particals and filters finer material. The press we used had 4' square plates if I remember right they would catch a lot of material before they had to be cleaned.

The vacume drum never did do as good of a job. The main reason for this is because it is better to do things like this under pressure rather than a vacume. You are limited to how much of a vacume you can put on something because it is harder to create a vacume than it is to produce pressure. With pressure you are only limited to what your piping and pump will withstand.


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## Anonymous (Jul 8, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 your not taking into account the g-forces generated by the drum spinning at 3250 RPM. Trust me something is going to come through that filter cloth.

Cheers
Gill


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 8, 2010)

gustavus said:


> Barren Realms 007 your not taking into account the g-forces generated by the drum spinning at 3250 RPM. Trust me something is going to come through that filter cloth.
> 
> Cheers
> Gill



If you can get the drum to turn 3250 RPM you are damn right some thing is going to come thru the filter. Just maybe not what you want to. 8) 

I really am behind you in this don't think I am trying to shoot it down.


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## Anonymous (Jul 8, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> gustavus said:
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> > Barren Realms 007 your not taking into account the g-forces generated by the drum spinning at 3250 RPM. Trust me something is going to come through that filter cloth.
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Perforated drum is only 12" in diameter using a direct drive motor that has a brake on it, didn't plan it that way just happened along. Never crossed my mind any hint of discouragement on this project. 

I think there could be other forum members watching how this project turns out. It would not be the first time i invested time and money into a project that did not pan out as I had anticipated. If a fellow just sits on the throne and daydreams about there projects nothing ever gets proven one way or other.

ttys
G


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 8, 2010)

gustavus said:


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Excellent, I agree with you 100%.

What is the HP rating on the motor?

Did this motor come with a break or is it something you built into the system?

You keep getting these 3250 RPM motors. What are you doing, getting a bunch of pool pump motors and using them. :lol:


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## qst42know (Jul 8, 2010)

At 3250 rpm both fluid and solid will try to climb out of your drum. What kind of lid do you have planned?

Do you have a speed control to slowly raise the RPM?


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 8, 2010)

Gill,

Talk about goofy ways to filter, here's one I played with that really worked well. It you're looking for simple, you can't beat this. All it takes is 3 buckets and a strip of cloth. It's (B) in my first post on this thread. It is very simple and worked well for very difficult-to-filter stuff, such as metal hydroxides and stripped x-ray film emulsion sludge. It doesn't really filter the material - it siphons the liquid out of the solids. If you can't figure it out by my explanation, let me know. The heavy polyester cloth I bought from Walmart to do this even stood up to AR.
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=3393&p=28720&hilit=polyester+cloth+strip+filter#p28720

Chris


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 8, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> Gill,
> 
> Talk about goofy ways to filter, here's one I played with that really worked well. It you're looking for simple, you can't beat this. All it takes is 3 buckets and a strip of cloth. It's (B) in my first post on this thread. It is very simple and worked well for very difficult-to-filter stuff, such as metal hydroxides and stripped x-ray film emulsion sludge. It doesn't really filter the material - it siphons the liquid out of the solids. If you can't figure it out by my explanation, let me know. The heavy polyester cloth I bought from Walmart to do this even stood up to AR.
> http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=3393&p=28720&hilit=polyester+cloth+strip+filter#p28720
> ...



I thought the cappilary action was well known. 

Are you sure that the color you described in that post on the link was not from coloring in the cloth? 

I didn't think that the cappilary action was supposed to transfer solids to the 3rd bucket, and that that is why it is used but it is a very slow process as you stated, depending a lot on the viscosity of the solution you are transfering. Grass grows faster.


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## Anonymous (Jul 8, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> Gill,
> 
> Talk about goofy ways to filter, here's one I played with that really worked well. It you're looking for simple, you can't beat this. All it takes is 3 buckets and a strip of cloth. It's (B) in my first post on this thread. It is very simple and worked well for very difficult-to-filter stuff, such as metal hydroxides and stripped x-ray film emulsion sludge. It doesn't really filter the material - it siphons the liquid out of the solids. If you can't figure it out by my explanation, let me know. The heavy polyester cloth I bought from Walmart to do this even stood up to AR.
> http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=3393&p=28720&hilit=polyester+cloth+strip+filter#p28720
> ...



My old man used to hang a wick over the side of our fuel drum to keep the water off, it would work for what I'm doing, but it would be deathly slow. 

I want something a bit quicker that will be more exact in extracting the values with maybe once rinse.

ttys
Gill


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 8, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> goldsilverpro said:
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Capillary action is well known but I've never heard of it being used as a filter. The capillary action tends to raise the solution in the cloth to the top. The siphoning force tends to draw it over the top and maintain the flow. It's a combination of these 2 forces, I think. Whatever it is., it most certainly worked.

Just try this. You might be pleasantly surprised. If you have the levels right, it will remove the liquid from sludge fairly quickly.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 8, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> Barren Realms 007 said:
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I have use the application on other things just not in this field. I was under the assumption that solids would not be readily transfered. I have never used it and paid attention to what solids would do because it has always been to transfer clean fluid not to filter solids from solution. Under the right circumstance it can work real quick.

Hmm..I have 2 things I can try this on possibly:
1. Some gold I droped from solution with copper plate that would not drop with SMB.
2. Sulfuric cell.

I might try this and report back.


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 8, 2010)

barren said:


> I have use the application on other things just not in this field. I was under the assumption that solids would not be readily transfered.


Can you tell me what applications you have tried this on and how you did it? 

The solids won't transfer. Only the liquid will. It separates liquids from solids. I tried it mainly on sludges or thick slurries, like metal hydroxides, and it worked great. Like I said, I also tried it on the gel-like sludge from stripping the silver/emulsion off of x-ray film, which is the most difficult thing I have ever filtered and can literally take days with a standard filter. It was nearly dry the next morning. It basically siphons the liquid away from the solids through the cells of the fabric. There is no actual filtering involved. The solution passes along the cloth rather than through it.

In the setup I suggested, the capillary action is needed to get the solution up through the cloth to the top edge of the bucket. Then, the siphoning takes over and draws the liquid over the side and into the catch bucket. Very simple. When I did it, with the bucket at an angle, I wiggled it until the sludge was almost to the lip of the bucket.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 8, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> The solids won't transfer. Only the liquid will.



I'm glad you bought the subject up then. I haven't even considered it in this field. Thanks


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## butcher (Jul 9, 2010)

Thanks GSP, to remove the water from my sludge Aluminum waste, boy that stuff is hard to sepeate the water from, this will save me alot of trouble.


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 9, 2010)

Here's a quicky sketch of the filtering thing I've been talking about. It's not very good but I think you can get the drift of it. Three buckets and a strip of cloth. Allow the cloth hanging in the bucket on the right to hang free.

You can raise the buckets on the left and make the cloth longer. In general, the longer the cloth hanging in the bucket on the right, the faster the drips. Get the cloth wet and wring it out before putting it in the bucket.


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## HAuCl4 (Jul 9, 2010)

Very cool GSP!. 8)


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## goldenchild (Jul 9, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> You can raise the buckets on the left and make the cloth longer. In general, the longer the cloth hanging in the bucket on the right, the faster the drips.



Genius in simplicity.


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## Anonymous (Jul 25, 2010)

From your responses it's easy to see that most of you are not fond of the idea of using a centrifugal filtering system, however I have forged forward turning the idea into a working prototype.

The stainless steel drum has been sand blasted then painted using a polyurethane paint, hopefully acid resistant or at best prolong the useful life of the drum.

According to the manufacture: Polyurethanes have excellent resist toward UV, acids, alkali, salts, chemicals, solvents, weathering, corrosion, fungi, and microbial. They are becoming first choice for high performance coating/paints.

This is why I have chosen Endura to paint my Massey 35 with, the paint used on the drum is leftover.

Left to do are to make a tilting stand to mount this on, then a removable top, and a spigot near the bottom for the liquids to exit. The bottom plate that the motor is mounted to is 2 inches thick and is domed on the inside allowing the liquids quick runoff.

The red silicone was used as a lubricant, installing the bottom plate it's very snug fit.

The purpose of the filter I'm building is for extracting the pregnant leach from my milled catalytic comb and bead. I do not believe that in breaking the comb into chunks or merely processing the beads whole is good enough in reclaiming all the PM's present.

Currently have 200 lbs of milled cats sitting in leech that will soon need to be filtered out.

Butts & Coxx in their book, Silver Economics, Metallurgy and Use make reference to a centrifuge filter being used to extract wash water from Silver Nitrate Crystals on pages 222/223

Apparently the use of centrifugal filters is not a new concept.


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## lazersteve (Jul 25, 2010)

Nice work Gill!

I can't wait to see how it works, I think it will do great job for what you want. 

Maybe you can do some side by side testing to see if the crushed honeycomb produces better yields and post your results.

Steve


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## Anonymous (Jul 25, 2010)

lazersteve said:


> Nice work Gill!
> 
> I can't wait to see how it works, I think it will do great jobs for what you want.
> 
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Steve research tell me that the beads are porous, it only makes sense that some of the wash coat is going to find it way into deep places where the acid will find it difficult to leech out the Pm's. Milling the cats exposes the metals.

Best Regards
Gill


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## skippy (Jul 26, 2010)

Gill, is that motor one of those fancy washing machine motors that you were talking about that people were buying to make into windmills?
Nice tidy construction! I too look forward to hearing how it works out.


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## Anonymous (Jul 26, 2010)

skippy said:


> Gill, is that motor one of those fancy washing machine motors that you were talking about that people were buying to make into windmills?
> Nice tidy construction! I too look forward to hearing how it works out.



No the motor is not a smart drive which have permanent magnets in place of field coils and is of a pancake design. 

The motor and drum I'm using came from a small spin extractor with a 4 kg capacity, that I salvaged from the landfill.


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## HAuCl4 (Jul 28, 2010)

Impressive unit. 

Pardon my ignorance, but where does the truck air filter paper fit?. Or have you changed filter medium?.


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## Anonymous (Jul 28, 2010)

HAuCl4 said:


> Impressive unit.
> 
> Pardon my ignorance, but where does the truck air filter paper fit?. Or have you changed filter medium?.




Using filter cloth that the wife has sewn into small sacks that fit the drum.


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## HAuCl4 (Jul 28, 2010)

gustavus said:


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And you place those outside the red drum right?.

I was thinking that you probably need 2 drums with holes, with the cloth/filter in the middle.


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## qst42know (Sep 6, 2010)

Hello Gill.

Have you tried this filter yet?

Chris


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## Anonymous (Sep 6, 2010)

qst42know said:


> Hello Gill.
> 
> Have you tried this filter yet?
> 
> Chris



Yes and it was a waste of time and money building the goofy filter, I'm going to use GSP's suggestion - the wick.

Best Regards
G


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## skippy (Sep 7, 2010)

Would you mind sharing a bit about why your centrifuge didn't work? There are lessons in failure just like there are with successes too. 
It seemed like a good concept to me, being able to centrifugally spin off the leach clinging to the ground honeycomb. I guess you'll have to see how well the wick works, but I think the centrifuge idea still may have merit, though obviously a wick has a lot going for in the simplicity department.


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