# newby first step



## callicom (Jul 24, 2011)

i`ve put av small batch of pins and fingers in nitric and filtered the base metals out, i`m fixing for another round of nitric once i`ve washed the filter with water to get the residues back in with the original finger and pin batch. after this second nitric i`ll see if all the base metals are gone by adding a little nitric to see if it keep fuming and if it does i`ll just repeat the process until there is no base metals left, this is my first step


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## gold4mike (Jul 24, 2011)

Sounds good so far. I would recommend processing the fingers in Acid Peroxide - view the videos on Steve's site.

Processing the pins in Nitric is OK but will give you problems if you have solder on the pins. 

I do a boil in HCl for pins and remove as much base metal as possible since HCl is MUCH cheaper than Nitric for me. Once nearly all of the base metal is gone I decant, add more HCl, then a few drops of Nitric at a time, using heat to make the Nitric work quickly. Once the reaction stops, add a few more drops of Nitric, repeating until all metal is dissolved.

This way you have a cleaner AR solution and have used much less Nitric. As you get better at judging the reaction you'll be able to avoid excess Nitric and won't have to neutralize much at all. I follow Harold's suggestion and use a small button to use up the remaining nitric (weigh it before and after) and then precipitate.

Keep reading and proceed cautiously - you're on the right path.


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## callicom (Jul 24, 2011)

how do i go to steves site, trust me when i say newby :mrgreen: fluorecent green even


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## element47 (Jul 24, 2011)

http://www.goldrecovery.us 

or, advanced search for "author", enter "lazersteve".....it's in his signature line.


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## callicom (Jul 24, 2011)

thanks for the link, i havent seen the video yet but i will, but for this fisrt step batch i ended up with a brown mud with gold flakes, some small bits of cb`s and what looks like white dust (maybe 10 percent after washing maybe a dozen times. i`m not sure if i`m ready for ar because of the white dust and bits of cb`s or if i could proceed . any advice :?:


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## Geo (Jul 24, 2011)

you can use AP to dissolve base metals in your pins if you use a bubbler and this will save problems using hcl+chl to dissolve your gold.imo its better than nitric because of the cost issue but if you really want to be frugal just make a gold cell.you can re-use your chemicals over and over and if done right you come out with a cleaner, purer gold.if you go with the cell be sure your material is clean and oil free and most important, dry.


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## callicom (Jul 24, 2011)

this is my first and i`d like to take it all the way to learn, what bug me is the white residue for now, in the future i will have to bring the cost down and will have to figure out these other processes you are mentioning, the white dust is it silver chloride and is it preventing me from moving on to ar :?:


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## eeTHr (Jul 24, 2011)

You won't make silver chloride in your first step, if you only added nitric acid. Any silver will go into solution in nitric, it won't form a white powder.

You gold will be in metalic form, either floating or sunk to the bottom, or both.

If your nitric is home made, the white powder is probably residual salts from the nitric making process. If so, first let the sediment settle to the bottom, then decant the nitric solution, leaving the sediment with your gold in the original container. Then a simple water wash would dissolve the white salts out of the sediment---add water, let the sediment settle, decant the water, leaving the sediment with your gold, in the original container.

If you have plastic or circuit board pieces in the mix, they won't be dissolved when you dissolve your gold. That's good.

Your gold will dissolve into solution when you add HCl and either nitric or Clorox. After all your gold is dissolved, when you pour the pregnant AR solution through a filter into another container, the plastic pieces and any other unwanted stuff will just catch in the filter. Your AR solution will now have no particles in it.

Then be sure there is no more nitric or chlorine in the AR solution. Then test it with stannous chloride to get an idea of how much gold is in solution (black is most, then grey, dark purple, and light purple when it is very diluted).

And then proceed as usual to precipitate your gold.

Silver chloride will form if you have silver in nitric solution, and you add HCl. If your nitric is homemade it might have some chlorides in it, however, and could form a little silver chloride if there is any silver in your scrap (it doesn't sound like there should be). But if this is what it is, then the filtering, as described above, will keep it out of your final AR solution.

If someone recognizes what the white powder is, and it's other than what I mentioned, they can tell you more about it, and what to do if the resolution is different that I have described.

This is minimal information pertaining only to what you have described so far. When processing other types of scrap, there can be more variables, for which there is lots of info on this forum.


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## callicom (Jul 24, 2011)

i put nitric over the pins and fingers about three times decanting the old nitric each time and putting new nitric then the fourth time the nitric didn;t do nothing and stayed clear so i decanted again and washed with water and decanted about a dozen times. it`s nice to look at, the flakes and the mud that i know is gold. the nitric is bought from a chemical supplier and not home made and in the dozen washes it didn`t disolve, do you think i should try nitric one more time for good measure :?:


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## nickvc (Jul 24, 2011)

callicom said:


> this is my first and i`d like to take it all the way to learn, what bug me is the white residue for now, in the future i will have to bring the cost down and will have to figure out these other processes you are mentioning, the white dust is it silver chloride and is it preventing me from moving on to ar :?:




I doubt it's silver chloride given your starting material....Id say store your powder somewhere safe.
I think you would be wise to do further research here on the forum and read C.M.Hoke and the forum handbooks available as a free download of several members signature lines ,Pattnor and Palladium been two that leap to mind.
I'm fairly certain many members can tell you how to proceed but it's fairly pointless if you don't understand what you have and why, if you do continue onto AR I think that the learning will be something you would rather not have had.....


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## eeTHr (Jul 25, 2011)

callicom---

nickvc has the right idea.

If you just want to get your gold out of what you've got, you could put a match head amount of the white powder into a white plastic spoon, and put 3 drops of HCl in it, and see if it dissolves.

If it doesn't dissolve, add a drop of nitric to it, and see what happens.

If it doesn't dissolve in either, HCL, or the AR you made by adding the drop of nitric, then you can dissolve your gold with AR and then filter the AR into another container to eliminate the white powder along with the rest of the sediment.

On the other hand, if it does dissolve in the HCl, then it will dissolve in AR. And if it dissolves after you add the drop of nitric, same thing. In either of these cases, having it dissolved in the AR may cause problems in precipitation of your gold.

Maybe someone else on here knows what it would be, if you report back with your results of the spoon and drops test.


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## Geo (Jul 25, 2011)

if your pins had any solder you have made a white powder called lead (II) nitrate.its just lead dissolved in nitric acid,its water soluble and can be removed by a hot water bath.and i don't think your brown mud is gold,it may have some gold stuck in it but for gold to precipitate out into a mud it first has to be dissolved and nitric alone will not dissolve gold.


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## callicom (Jul 25, 2011)

i`ve ordered hoke`s book and meanwhile i`m reading the pdf hoke`s and he say`s in the book that the pure gold wont disolve in nitric but the lower karot gold will end up as a mud in the bottom on page 43. now thanks to you guys i`ll try the white spoon to see and then the hot water bath. i know i`m not at the melting yet but i have acetaline and oxigen bottles but i only have a cutting torch and brazing tip i wonder if this would work :?: thanks for the help, this forum is a blessing


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 25, 2011)

callicom said:


> i`ve ordered hoke`s book and meanwhile i`m reading the pdf hoke`s and he say`s in the book that the pure gold wont disolve in nitric but the lower karot gold will end up as a mud in the bottom on page 43. now thanks to you guys i`ll try the white spoon to see and then the hot water bath. i know i`m not at the melting yet but i have acetaline and oxigen bottles but i only have a cutting torch and brazing tip i wonder if this would work :?: thanks for the help, this forum is a blessing



Yes you can use your brazing tip set on low pressure so you don't blow your gold out of your melting dish.


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## callicom (Jul 25, 2011)

thanks for the acetaline oxy info. as for the lead nitrate it seams like geo is right, i havent tested yet but i looked at the pin and 30 percent seem to have minuscule amount of solder from triming too close to the board :!: so i`ll start by giving it a hot water bath, i`ll give the results, thanks


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## callicom (Jul 26, 2011)

well the hot water bath i gave it consisted of boiling water on the stove, pouring it over and decanting several times since i don`t have a hot plate yet. it has gotten rid of a large part of the white dust but what is left (3-5 percent of mud) is more like a very very light green. i poored just a smidgen of nitric over it and i let sit for half an hour and washed and decanted a few more times but this small amount is still there . is it possible that my ferrous well water i wash with causes this very very light green dust :?:


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## callicom (Jul 26, 2011)

now i`ve taken a little hydrochloric and put a few drops on a small sample and it seams to disolve the white light green dust right out and leave only the gold (under magnifying glass) would it be a problem to have a final wash with hydrochloric, hydrochloric doesn`t melt the gold by itself from what i understand.


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## gold4mike (Jul 26, 2011)

Since you started this process initially using nitric there is a good chance you have a small amount of it left with your gold. If you add HCl to it you will make AR, the strength of which will depend upon how much nitric was left. Rinsing alone will not remove it.

One solution to your problem is to incinerate, to red heat, your mixture of solids to kill off whatever nitric may remain. Dissolve what's left in HCl, Let settle, decant the liquid. Your gold should reamain untouched. 

You can then twice-refine your gold to achieve the purity you desire.


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## martyn111 (Jul 26, 2011)

callicom said:


> would it be a problem to have a final wash with hydrochloric, hydrochloric doesn`t melt the gold by itself from what i understand.



In keeping with the forums effort to use correct terminology, you do not melt gold or any other metal using acids, you are dissolving the metal.


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## callicom (Jul 26, 2011)

dissolve ok, plus that`s what it does, dissolve.


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## callicom (Jul 26, 2011)

gold4mike said:


> Since you started this process initially using nitric there is a good chance you have a small amount of it left with your gold. If you add HCl to it you will make AR, the strength of which will depend upon how much nitric was left. Rinsing alone will not remove it.
> 
> One solution to your problem is to incinerate, to red heat, your mixture of solids to kill off whatever nitric may remain. Dissolve what's left in HCl, Let settle, decant the liquid. Your gold should reamain untouched.
> 
> You can then twice-refine your gold to achieve the purity you desire.


it`s too late, i`ve already washed it and i didn`t lose the gold, i guess i`d rinced it so many times (a dozen or more) the nitric was in too small a quantity to mean anything, unless it`s dissolving as i`m writing this :mrgreen:


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## gold4mike (Jul 26, 2011)

It's quite possible that the remaining nitric was negligible. You can find out for sure by testing the HCl rinse with Stannous Chloride. If you haven't made any yet should do that right away. 

A good habit is to test EVERY liquid before you neutralize/discard to make sure you're not losing any values anywhere.


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## callicom (Jul 26, 2011)

your right i need to pick up good nabits from start, the stanous i have is from shor, a kit i havent used yet, i got me a bucket just for my filters seems like i lose gold particles when i decant. there`s a lot to work out :!: thanks


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## Geo (Jul 26, 2011)

solder is a combination of lead and tin.i suspect what you had left was the tin which is reacted upon by hcl acid readily.going from nitric to hcl or hcl to nitric is tricky unless you want to make AR.dont dump your wash till you test with stannous.if gold is found precip with a little sodium metabisulfite.as mentioned before you can go from one to another but its easier to know which step to do first.i use AP on some of my pins(i do about three pounds at a time) with a air pump from a fish tank as a bubbler it takes 7-10 days to strip them all.i dont digest the whole pin,just enough to release the gold.any that still has gold goes into the next batch.really theres no need for the peroxide unless you want to jump start the reaction.using hcl to strip pins removes the problems you have with using different acids.


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## callicom (Jul 27, 2011)

Geo said:


> solder is a combination of lead and tin.i suspect what you had left was the tin which is reacted upon by hcl acid readily.going from nitric to hcl or hcl to nitric is tricky unless you want to make AR.dont dump your wash till you test with stannous.if gold is found precip with a little sodium metabisulfite.as mentioned before you can go from one to another but its easier to know which step to do first.i use AP on some of my pins(i do about three pounds at a time) with a air pump from a fish tank as a bubbler it takes 7-10 days to strip them all.i dont digest the whole pin,just enough to release the gold.any that still has gold goes into the next batch.really theres no need for the peroxide unless you want to jump start the reaction.using hcl to strip pins removes the problems you have with using different acids.


i`m starting to familiarise myself with these abreviations, where can i find them all, ap doesn`t tell me much to be honest and right now i`m learning with nitric but i don`t think its cost eficient. is ap hydrochlauric and peroxide :?: and if it is this bubler system you use sounds cost eficient but how in the world do you sort the gold from the sludge you have left :?:


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## gold4mike (Jul 27, 2011)

Yes, AP is Acid Peroxide, HCl and Hydrogen Peroxide. Use the 3% Peroxide you find at the drug store, WalMart, etc. 

I use a small fish tank air bubbler with an air stone. I've found that the blue air stones hold up better than the black ones. Some forum members simply use a sealed plastic tube with many small holes drilled through it to make the bubbler.

There shouldn't be any sludge remaining from AP, just some undigested metal. If there is any black powder amongst the undissolved pins it might be gold that has dissolved (from using too much peroxide) and then cemented as the pins put more copper into the solution. 

You can swirl water around through the remains to free up the gold flakes and pour through a coffee filter to catch them and any black powder. Leave the undigested pins behind and they can be included in the next batch.

Again, ALWAYS test your liquids before disposing anything.


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## Geo (Jul 27, 2011)

callicom said:


> Geo said:
> 
> 
> > solder is a combination of lead and tin.i suspect what you had left was the tin which is reacted upon by hcl acid readily.going from nitric to hcl or hcl to nitric is tricky unless you want to make AR.dont dump your wash till you test with stannous.if gold is found precip with a little sodium metabisulfite.as mentioned before you can go from one to another but its easier to know which step to do first.i use AP on some of my pins(i do about three pounds at a time) with a air pump from a fish tank as a bubbler it takes 7-10 days to strip them all.i dont digest the whole pin,just enough to release the gold.any that still has gold goes into the next batch.really theres no need for the peroxide unless you want to jump start the reaction.using hcl to strip pins removes the problems you have with using different acids.
> ...


AP is acid/peroxide or hydrochloric acid + peroxide.it is the preferred method of processing fingers and there shouldnt be any sludge left over from the fingers,as for the pins if they have no solder there isnt any other byproduct.if solder is present you will make lead (II) chloride crystals which looks like white sand and just like before it is water soluble and can be removed with hot water.


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## callicom (Jul 27, 2011)

it seems to me like this process even if it takes 7 to 10 days is very cheap once you have built the original set up. if i understand right this hydrichlauric -peroxide solution is poured on the pins and bubbles up to ten days in the original solution which then is decanted for the gold, if i was to process 3.5lb of pin with nitric to burn out the base metals it would probably 150 bucks if not more. this seems to obviouly be the way to go. is there a post with pics and fine tuning of this process :?:


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## gold4mike (Jul 27, 2011)

It's the same process many of us use on "fingers". Look for the link to LazerSteve's website in his signature. You can watch his AP video for free on his website.

I use the Muriatic acid from Lowe's - they call it concrete cleaner - and it costs me somewhere around $6-$8 per gallon. They also sometimes carry it in the Pool Chemicals section.


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## callicom (Jul 27, 2011)

for some reason i can`t see the video, does one you have a pic of the set up.and mayby a brief outline of the steps, i might be able to get by with just that


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## Geo (Jul 27, 2011)

i can post a few pics later as i don't have any on file.i use a 5 gallon bucket and place the plastic tube in the bottom and then place the pins on the tube to anchor it to the bottom so it doesn't float up,use enough tube to place the pump safely above the level of your acid to prevent back flow of acid into your pump.for your 3.5 pounds of pins i would recommend at least 1 gallon hcl to loosen most of the gold plate (3 gallons would most likely digest all base metal).i would only add 1 pint of peroxide to start the reaction,after that the bubbler will add all the oxygen the reaction needs.if you use a stone there's no need to worry about the tube floating,if you melt the end shut and drill a few holes it will float.this process produces alot of fumes so don't do this indoors or in a closed space without ventilation.in the video your shown to use a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom inside another larger bucket to contain the reaction.this is viable for fingers as it helps with the recovery of foils and cleanup,but pins are so small this bucket within a bucket doesn't really work too well.the green liquid produced is copper chloride.if you add even minute quantities of water it will produce copper (II) chloride,a white powder that is insoluble in water and will trap your foils,but not to worry,a small amount of fresh hcl will dissolve the white powder.


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## callicom (Jul 27, 2011)

that sounds prety simple,i`ll go to tho store tommorow get the stuff and proceed with the pins i have left and the fingers and all. i put one of my processors in nitric and i was expecting the pins to fall off and most of then are still on, should i try the processors in the ap :?:


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## callicom (Jul 27, 2011)

sorry i wasn`t patient enough...the pins fell off,thanks to all of you for the help, i see the light at the end of the tunel now.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 27, 2011)

Geo said:


> i can post a few pics later as i don't have any on file.i use a 5 gallon bucket and place the plastic tube in the bottom and then place the pins on the tube to anchor it to the bottom so it doesn't float up,use enough tube to place the pump safely above the level of your acid to prevent back flow of acid into your pump.for your 3.5 pounds of pins i would recommend at least 1 gallon hcl to loosen most of the gold plate (3 gallons would most likely digest all base metal).i would only add 1 pint of peroxide to start the reaction,after that the bubbler will add all the oxygen the reaction needs.if you use a stone there's no need to worry about the tube floating,if you melt the end shut and drill a few holes it will float.this process produces alot of fumes so don't do this indoors or in a closed space without ventilation.in the video your shown to use a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom inside another larger bucket to contain the reaction.this is viable for fingers as it helps with the recovery of foils and cleanup,but pins are so small this bucket within a bucket doesn't really work too well.the green liquid produced is copper chloride.if you add even minute quantities of water it will produce copper (II) chloride,a white powder that is insoluble in water and will trap your foils,but not to worry,a small amount of fresh hcl will dissolve the white powder.



You can use the same bucket setup for doing pin's that you use fingers for. You can go to home depot or a paint supply huse and get a paint strainer that set's inside of a 5 gal. bucket and cut the screen large enough the fit in the bottom of your inner bucket and it will keep your pins inside. 

You would be best served to let the reaction finish till all of your base metals are digested. Other wise you take a chance of loosing some of your gold plating still mixed with your undissolved pin's.


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## callicom (Jul 27, 2011)

is there a special way of decanting to keep the foils from going back to the filter, now my gold is siting in water with some plastics :?:


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## Palladium (Jul 27, 2011)

callicom said:


> is there a special way of decanting to keep the foils from going back to the filter, now my gold is siting in water with some plastics :?:




GSP 
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=350&p=2916&hilit=glued+sand#p2916

Good questions. Anyone answering these questions will give different answers. Everyone develops their own system, depending on their own conditions, equipment, etc. One method is not necessarily the best, Try to pool everyone's ideas together and find the way that suits you. Keep in mind, however, the goals: don't lose any gold; do things to get maximum purity; think safety. Here's the way I do it.


What's the best containers to use.
I prefer 4 liter beakers for dissolving and use a watch glass to cover it. In case of breakage or spillage, I place the beaker in a 5 quart, white, flat bottomed, Corning Ware dish and put the dish on the hotplate. For 5 ozs, or less, you can use a pyrex, 10 or 12 cup, replacement drip coffee pot. The best is the one with a stainless steel ring holding the short plastic handle, only at the top. Don't get the type where the bottom of the handle is attached. It will burn.

After dissolving, I transfer the solution to a clean, white, 5 gallon plastic bucket. I add 3 times the volume of tap water that I have acid plus about 60 mL of battery acid per each gallon of acid. These two additions will drop out any silver or lead that is dissolved in the acid and these will be removed by filtering. Stir the solution. The long straight part from a plastic clothes hanger works great.

I sit the bucket on a table or a bench. I place a piece of 2" X 4" underneath the back edge of the bucket. This tilts the bucket towards you and allows the solids to settle in one spot on the front bottom of the bucket. I put the lid of the bucket and allow the solids to settle overnight,


What is the best way to decant my solution w/o disturbing the gold sediment after percipitating?
There are three ways to do this. I do all three, depending on what I'm dealing with. More often than not, I siphon. No matter which one I use, I always end up filtering the entire solution. Super clean solutions, before precipitating, is necessary for good gold purity. This goes fast, however, if you first use one of these methods to get a gross separation of the liquid and the solids. Decant, dip, or siphon off the liquid. Filter the liquid first and then filter the solids plus the remaining liquid last. If you were to try and filter the entire thing, without first separating the liquid and solids, it would take forever.

(1) Decanting. You can carefully pour off the solution into another bucket. This is the fastest way. When you tilted the bucket, the solids settled together in one pile. Before pouring, put the receiving bucket inside a plastic tray with about a 7 gallon capacity (WalMart), to catch drips and spills. Put the tray on the floor. When you pour, keep the pile nearest the bucket you are pouring into. In other words, try not to disturb the pile. Go slow and steady. Keep an eye on the solids. Just before the solids start to go over, stop. After pouring, there will be a slight film of solution, where you poured from, at the rim of the bucket. Either have a friend rinse this gold bearing film into the receiving bucket or, rinse it back into the bucket containing the solids. If there are drips remaining anywhere on the outside of the bucket, wipe them off with a piece of paper towel. Save this and any other paper towels you've used to wipe up spills that contain PM's. Eventually, you can burn the towels and recover the values. It's actually better to have 3 separate buckets to save PM laden towels - gold, silver, and Pt group.

(2) Dipping. I don't use this method much when working with buckets. I use it a lot when working with open plastic drums. Often, it is difficult to raise a heavy drum high enough to completely siphon it. So, I keep it on the floor and siphon it into an empty plastic drum sitting next to it. When half of the solution is siphoned, the solution level in the 2 drums will be equal, and, therefore, the siphon will stop working. I dip the other half of the solution out with a neat scoop that I cut from 1 gallon plastic jugs. 

With the bucket still tilted, carefully dip the solution out, and into the filter, with a 1 cup Pyrex measuring cup - the type with a handle. To keep from disturbing the solids, use this technique. Turn the cup sideways and slowly immerse it part way. As it fills, slowly turn it upright and, at the same time, bring it out of the solution. If you do it right, the solution surface will hardly make a ripple. As you get near the bottom, you have to be more careful and fill the cup less and less each time. To keep from dripping solution all over, hold a bucket lid under the cup, with the other hand, when moving the solution to the filter. When safely over the filter, remove the bucket lid. When finished, rinse off the lid and the cup into the filter. When the liquid is completely finished filtering, start filtering the solids. 

(3) Siphoning. Proper siphoning can remove the most liquid without disturbing the solids. This makes the filtering go faster because there are less solids to filter. And, the solids are what clogs the paper and slows down the filtering. I don't use gloves when siphoning because the tubing is harder to manipulate. Of, course, I always have purple hands. I do recommend that you use gloves. The thinner the gloves, the better, for this operation. Practice the siphoning a few times to get the hang of it. Put a little sand in a bucket of water. Tilt the bucket, let the sand settle, and siphon off the water.

This is a little harder to explain without pictures. Put a clean bucket inside a plastic tray and put the tray on the floor beneath the tilted bucket on the bench. Get about a 4' length of 3/8" ID clear, flexible, plastic tubing from the hardware store. With this size tubing, a full bucket will take about 5 minutes to siphon. 

These instructions are for a right handed person. Reverse them if you are left handed. Fold the tubing double so that the ends meet and are together. Fill the tubing with water to the brims of both ends of the tubing. Stand on the right side of the buckets. Hold the ends of the tubing together in your left hand. Keeping the ends at the same level, hold the right end in your right hand and put your left index finger over the left end, to seal it. Keeping the left end sealed, lower it to the bucket on the floor, until your hand is partway inside the bucket. And, here's the tricky part. At almost the same time, put the right end about an inch into the solution and release your left index finger. Actually. the left finger release should occur about a half second after you stick the right end into the solution. If the solution flows, release the left hand completely and allow the tubing to hang in the lower bucket. If it doesn't flow, start over.


As you're siphoning keep an eye glued to the end of the tubing that's in the liquid. Try to keep the tubing only about an inch deep in the liquid. This is hard to see if the liquid is dark colored. I usually color about 1-1/2" (measure it) of the end of the tubing with a red Magic Marker. Black is OK but you can see the red better. This enables you to determine how deep the tubing is in the liquid. The marker will wear off after a few times and you will have to redo it. It's hard to hold the tubing steady and keep from disturbing the solids. To remedy this, I put the very edge of the tip of the tubing against the front side of the bucket, while keeping it about an inch deep. As the liquid level goes down, slide the tip down with it, against the side of the bucket. As you approach the solids, reduce the depth of the tip in the liquid and, with your left hand, slowly tilt the bucket a little more towards you. . 

I repeat, keep your eyes on the tubing. If the tubing comes out of the liquid, for only an instant, the siphon will break and you'll have to start over. After siphoning, rinse the tubing, inside and out, into the top bucket along with the solids. The best thing to use for rinsing and, for filling the siphon tubing with water, is a lab type, plastic, squeeze type, squirt bottle with a long spout. The spout points sideways from the lid. I have also seen these in sporting goods stores. Joggers use them.


Can excess urea affect the way gold percipitates?

With no urea, the Storm (sodium metabisulfite) reacts with the excess nitric before it starts dropping out the gold. With too little urea, the same thing happens. If you don't have any excess nitric to start with, you don't need urea. That is my approach and I've covered how to do it on several other threads. With a lot of extra nitric and no urea, you may have to add several pounds of Storm before anything happens. With way too much urea, the excess will sit on the bottom and won't dissolve.


How do I filter my aqua regia acid.....Can coffee filters be utilized
There is a good discussion of filtering on several threads and this thread, especially. With coffee filters, lazersteve's setup would be best. With lab type filter papers, mine would probably be better.
viewtopic.php?t=251


do I use urea before Filtering?
Interesting question. I don't use urea any more and haven't really thought about this question. Either way would work, although most people do it after filtering. However, if you are heavy handed, add an excess, and have undissolved urea sitting on the bottom, it would be better to filter after adding. Of course, how do you know in advance that you will add too much urea? Were I to start using it, I would probably add it before filtering.


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## callicom (Jul 28, 2011)

this is good info,thanks for the good description , i could see it all being done. after you dropped the lead and silver do you recuperate the silver or is the silver not worth the trouble (small amount). i havent used the shore yet, what i have now is gold flakes in a brown powder with some plastic sitting in clean water, this came from dissolution in pure nitric to get rid of base metals, when i get enuogh of this i want to ar this and filter out the plastic then drop the gold. the dissolution in pure nitric is too expensive so the rest of my pins will be done in ap as described by geo, with this batch i`ll use your advice on decant-siphon-dip and i`ll add this mud and flakes to the rest to ar. do you guys do the pin and fingers together :?: thats what i`ve been doing but pullin out the plastic a piece at a time is time consuming so i`m thinking of seperating the free pins from the plastic with fingers and treating them seperatly using a paint plastic filter for the plastic fingers. seems like if i dissolve all the good stuff out of the plastic and if i`m able to have most of it in the filter it will be much faster to seperate the foils from the plastic :!:


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## dtectr (Jul 28, 2011)

If the plastics survived the initial processes without degrading, forget about taking them out - you'll never get all the gold either out/off of them. Once all the base metals are removed, you'll be left with gold powder/foils.

When you dissolve the gold powder/foils, the auric chloride (liquid) will simply rinse out of the remaining plastics. After a thorough rinsing, throw the trash plastic away - you have your gold.

just my dos centavos.


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## Geo (Jul 28, 2011)

dtectr said:


> If the plastics survived the initial processes without degrading, forget about taking them out - you'll never get all the gold either out/off of them. Once all the base metals are removed, you'll be left with gold powder/foils.
> 
> When you dissolve the gold powder/foils, the auric chloride (liquid) will simply rinse out of the remaining plastics. After a thorough rinsing, throw the trash plastic away - you have your gold.
> 
> just my dos centavos.


dtectr is right,don't worry about mechanically separating the plastic because when you digest the gold you will filter the solids out anyway.if you have never done the process of dissolving gold with AR before i would suggest not using it this time but instead use hcl+chlorox to dissolve the gold.the chemistry behind this process is too lengthy to describe all at once but is a little less complicated to do than AR imo, and less expensive too.again simply because there's no need for multiple acids. you use hcl to separate gold from base metals and then again to dissolve your gold.take your foils and powders and place in a glass container or porcelain container(which i prefer because its white and i can see when all my metal is dissolved) for a few grams up to 1/2 oz of material add about 1/2 cup of hcl acid and stir.then with a measuring device(i use a glass dropper with a rubber bulb) add a few ml's of chlorox at a time each time wait till the fizzing stops and stir,solution will turn green each time you add chlorox but will go clear quickly.look at the solution each time you add chlorox to see if all material is dissolved.when all the metal is dissolved filter through a couple of coffee filters that you have wet using just water.your solution should be a yellow color when you are finished.when you filter all of your solution rinse your filter with water till all the yellow is rinsed out of the filter.let it sit for a day to let excess chlorine evaporate before precipitating with SMB.the name of the yellow solution you will have made is Auric Chloride,which is simply gold dissolved in chlorine.not sure whether anyone has told you or if you already knew about it but a spray bottle with a finger pump is kind of a must have with any of this(i have several)and keep them all full of distilled water as not to add minerals to the solution.


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## callicom (Jul 28, 2011)

this is the first i hear of this and again this seems a whole lot less expensive than the process i`ve been studying (ar) i`ll be sure todo this, thanks a lot for your help it`s realy apreciated. when you mention the spray bottles it`s to rince the filter from the outside so as to keep the junk inside the filter, and that rince is added to the auric chlauride solution before dropping the gold or is it to keep the fizzing down or is it incase you get some acid-clorox on you or all of the above :?: the smb is sodium metabisulfite :?: if thats what it is i got some from a wine making supply store, they use it to wash the bottles, this should be sufficient right. i also have a bottle of sodium bisulfate (a instead of i) is this a similar product as smb :?: also tommorow i`m going to buy about 30 to 40 pounds of main boards, i told the guy i would give 4.30 $ a pound like pc board sort (i think i have the name right)does on his web site, i hope i`m doing the right thing


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## Geo (Jul 28, 2011)

callicom said:


> this is the first i hear of this and again this seems a whole lot less expensive than the process i`ve been studying (ar) i`ll be sure todo this, thanks a lot for your help it`s realy apreciated. when you mention the spray bottles it`s to rince the filter from the outside so as to keep the junk inside the filter, and that rince is added to the auric chlauride solution before dropping the gold or is it to keep the fizzing down or is it incase you get some acid-clorox on you or all of the above :?: the smb is sodium metabisulfite :?: if thats what it is i got some from a wine making supply store, they use it to wash the bottles, this should be sufficient right. i also have a bottle of sodium bisulfate (a instead of i) is this a similar product as smb :?: also tommorow i`m going to buy about 30 to 40 pounds of main boards, i told the guy i would give 4.30 $ a pound like pc board sort (i think i have the name right)does on his web site, i hope i`m doing the right thing


the spray bottle is for rinsing.any time you transfer material or solution from one container to another use the spray bottle to rinse the residue into the receiving container and to rinse residue from your filter and are just handy to have around. :lol: if you have floating foils the mist spray will knock them to the bottom quick.yes,rinse the filter with the spray bottle into your receiving container after you've poured all your solution through.the fizzing happens only as you add clorox and last only a couple of seconds.sodium metabisulfite not sulfate,big difference.sodium metabisulfite will precipitate gold and metabisulfate will only make a mess.be sure to inspect those boards as people will sell depopulated boards(boards with the components removed)without informing you before hand.if its from PC's the term is mother boards.


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## callicom (Jul 28, 2011)

if the memories and processors are out thats normal or should they still be on there :?:


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## Geo (Jul 28, 2011)

memory cards are recovered as memory and are seldom scrapped so missing memory cards are to be expected,CPU's is where most of the gold on a mother board is at.its hard to say if one board is worth more than another but the older the board the thicker the gold plating is.so an older board without a CPU can still have more gold than a more modern board with one.with gold on the rise i would say it sounds like a decent investment.personally i pay $5.00 apiece for whole computers but where i live scrap yards will not buy scrap that contains circuit boards of any kind.good for me.


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## callicom (Jul 28, 2011)

well that`s good to have something in your favour, what do you do to get the computers do you advertise of some sort :?:


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## dtectr (Jul 29, 2011)

Sodium bisul_fate_ is a precursor (right phrase?) or less reactive substitute for sulfuric acid. if you have done jewelry fab or repair, gold or silver, it is the same as Sparex 2. It is _not_ the same as "Sodium bisul_fite_.

The wine store stuff should work, though I'm unfamiliar with it, personally. Get the product name and do a "Google" search for "[product name] MSDS" (material safety data sheet). It should provide percentage of SMB, as well as other additives that should be addressed in processing.


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## Geo (Jul 29, 2011)

callicom said:


> well that`s good to have something in your favour, what do you do to get the computers do you advertise of some sort :?:


word of mouth mostly.spending some time at scrap yards and letting people know that you pay for something the scrap yard wont buy (especially the people i call alley runners),the people that collect scrap from alley ways and dumpsters for a living.since the scrap yards wont buy computers most of them will just leave them in the trash but if they know they can sell them for a few dollars they will collect them for awhile till they have enough to sell and either call me or even bring them to me.i only pay $5.00 if they still have the CPU and HD,the more parts that are missing the less i pay.for other machines with electronics its per piece.medical equipment and military equipment has the most PM's as all the connections have to be fail-safe so the gold is very much thicker than PC's.also there are other precious metals in a PC besides gold,palladium being the other more common PM in a PC.this metal is located in the very small components that are soldered directly to the face of the board and dont have legs that go through the board and are called monolithic ceramic capacitors.normally found directlly behind(or underneath)components called flatpacks on opposite side of the board they are also found opposite the CPU.small and rectangular ranging in color from black to gray to brown and sometimes as small as a grain of sand.collect these components and hoard them till you have enough to warrant processing them.MCC's have been discussed at length on the forum so do a search for more information.


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## callicom (Jul 29, 2011)

i have about 10 boards in the barn that i cut the pins off i`ll go check them for these mcc`s and stick them in a mason jar. when i get a board i cut off all the card plug ins and pins even the spot where the cpu plugs in, all the jacks too, the pins in them have a good plating


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## callicom (Jul 30, 2011)

thanks to geo i just started an ap bath with about half a pound of material. i got the pump and green stones, i was wondering if the green stone will last the whole seven to ten days :?: also i looked and in fact the boards have them ceramic little rectangles, also some of my older looking boards don`t have them but instead have little beige looking saussage shape things are those good also :?: i don`t have an exess amount of time so i`m not sure if i should collect these :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Jul 30, 2011)

ive always used the black stones so not sure about the green ones.of coarse collect and store the ceramics but without a picture of the others i really cant give an opinion on them.it sounds like a resistor though which as far as i know contains no PM's.take one and crush it then dissolve in nitric,it shouldnt take much,make it 50/50 nitric and water about 6 ml then test with stannous chloride if a rainbow shows up your in business.


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## callicom (Jul 30, 2011)

yea thats sounds like a sure way to find out for the ceramics. about the ap, for half a pound i put half gallon of hydrochlauric and one third of a bottle of peroxide, after 3 hours i looked and the metal is turned black, is this what was to expect :?:


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## Geo (Jul 30, 2011)

callicom said:


> yea thats sounds like a sure way to find out for the ceramics. about the ap, for half a pound i put half gallon of hydrochlauric and one third of a bottle of peroxide, after 3 hours i looked and the metal is turned black, is this what was to expect :?:


yep.you shouldnt see loose flake for a few days.the black is the small amount of solder on your pins.it poses no problem to the process.


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## callicom (Jul 30, 2011)

thanks for the help, i`ll keep posting an update it might help the next guy that comes around. :mrgreen:


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## callicom (Jul 31, 2011)

day one ap- the liquid is turning light see through yellow and bubbling away :mrgreen:


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## callicom (Aug 2, 2011)

day three the solution is getting a darker green and the pins are all black from i assume the acid working on them to dissolve. it`s a very slow process compared to nitric therefore you get an odor but not the thick brown vapor that you get from nitric, it`s still not something you would do inside i guess unless you had a hood.


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## Geo (Aug 2, 2011)

yea.hydrogen chloride is the white mist you see coming from the acid.dont breathe these fumes.AP is a slow process but speed doesnt always win the race.how much it cost you to win quickly may outweigh the cost of slow and steady.i thought i had done something wrong when i first did pins in AP because it took so long but imagine my surprise when i picked up the bucket and swirled the solution and gold sparkled all in it.


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## callicom (Aug 2, 2011)

i took a couple puffs by accident and it`s not pleasant at all :| i was wondering if i should move the pins around a little or push them over the bubbling area or if i just leave it as is without disruption :?:


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## Geo (Aug 2, 2011)

agitation speeds the process.rotate your reaction chamber in a sudden motion back and forth a couple of times a day to move the pins around,but not so violently to cause a spill.i do this with the wire handle on my bucket.


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## jimdoc (Aug 2, 2011)

Somebody mentioned that you should cut off the wire handles on your buckets when using them to refine. The fumes will rust them to the point they can't be trusted, so you should remove them to avoid an accident. I cut them off my buckets.

Jim


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## Geo (Aug 2, 2011)

jimdoc said:


> Somebody mentioned that you should cut off the wire handles on your buckets when using them to refine. The fumes will rust them to the point they can't be trusted, so you should remove them to avoid an accident. I cut them off my buckets.
> 
> Jim


good point.but im not very monogamous when it comes to my buckets,if i see the handle rusting badly i use it for other purposes and grab another bucket.and too i buy new buckets with lids and knew the fumes would be bad so i put vents with tubing to vent gases away.for the AP on fingers both buckets have the handles removed.


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 2, 2011)

For whatever it is worth, I've been using 5 gallon plastic buckets for at least 35 years and have never, never, ever had a handle (called a bail) rust and fail - not once that I can remember. I never cut them off and always use them to handle the bucket. I trust them implicitly and, to me, they are safer to handle when using the bail, even when pretty full. So, what am I doing differently? Your guess is as good as mine. One answer I can think of is that I have always used them in a good fume hood. I also stay away from the crappy orange ones from Home Depot or any other colored ones. I do like the graduated translucent ones from Loews - accurate and handy for measurements.


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## jimdoc (Aug 2, 2011)

4metals mentioned it in this thread;
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=6551

And I have had some handles get rusty to the point of not trusting
them. And my Pyrex coffee pot's "stainless looking" handles (actually the strap)
get very rusty to the point that I don't trust them.


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## callicom (Aug 3, 2011)

Geo said:


> agitation speeds the process.rotate your reaction chamber in a sudden motion back and forth a couple of times a day to move the pins around,but not so violently to cause a spill.i do this with the wire handle on my bucket.


i was thinking of using a styck to push the pins over the bubbling, spinning it i probably less trouble, i`ll keep posting thanks


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## callicom (Aug 3, 2011)

day four- the liquid has turned to a dark brown and i`m starting to see gold flakes floating around. it nice to see this happening especially knowing the cost is minimal and the products easy to get. i`ll keep an eye on the handle but i don`t see a problem on the short run, what do you guys do anyway , drill a couple holes and run a rope through them :?:


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## Geo (Aug 3, 2011)

when your solution gets the color and consistency of Worcestershire sauce it will be saturated with copper and will not digest any more.if your container is large enough you might add more acid to whats there,if not turn off air supply and let foils settle (a couple of hours should do it) and slowly and carefully decant used solution to a new container careful not to disturb foils as much as possible.add more acid ,no more peroxide should be needed,restart air supply.filter used acid into a sturdy plastic container (a 5 gallon bucket will work for now) and place a lid on for later processing to remove copper.as for the handle, personally i think this is a non-issue.although good advise for someone that doesnt stay on top of whats happening to their equipment,and of all the people out there that work with chemicals im sure there are a few that dont but to me its like the tag on your hair dryer telling you not to use it in the shower.


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## callicom (Aug 5, 2011)

day six-- i had to add alittle acid but there wasn`t many pins left so i only put a little, its realy all dissolving and i chequed the green stone and it looked quite healthy, it looks like it might serve for a few baths


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## Geo (Aug 5, 2011)

great.sounds good so far.if your solution is saturated with copper it will have pushed out any gold that went into solution when you added peroxide so you might have a little black powder as well but its always a good idea to test with stannous chloride before processing the copper out of your solution.


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## callicom (Aug 6, 2011)

what are you saying :?: that i should add a little peroxide before i decant the solution :?: i`m ready to decant so i`ll wait for your answer before i go any further :!: i will take the bubbler out so the gold can settle at the bottom :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Aug 6, 2011)

callicom said:


> what are you saying :?: that i should add a little peroxide before i decant the solution :?: i`m ready to decant so i`ll wait for your answer before i go any further :!: i will take the bubbler out so the gold can settle at the bottom :mrgreen:


when you heat hcl, gold can actually go into solution,the same with adding peroxide.when you put gold into hcl then add peroxide the initial color change you see is a yellow color,that's gold going into solution.as your solution becomes saturated with copper the gold will drop out of solution.it wont be much but when you decant and filter your foils may have some black powder.if you do this is probably gold.if your solution isn't saturated yet use it to start your next batch that way it will cement out any gold left in solution when it does become saturated.if the pins are digested let the foils settle and decant as much as possible without disturbing foils in the bottom.filter whats left into your receiving container.if you filter before decanting it will take forever and if your going to reuse the old solution there's no need to be too precise, just don't spill any.rinse foils in a separate container and add to you stock pot.keep all filters and place in a plastic container to dry.rinse foils in a little fresh hcl to get rid of any stray copper.pour rinse in your next batch and let foils dry in filter. whew! collect foils for refining.


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## callicom (Aug 6, 2011)

yes it was a light yellow when i started the process and i was wondering if it was gold. to find out if the solution is saturated i guess i do a stanous :?:


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 6, 2011)

Geo said:


> callicom said:
> 
> 
> > what are you saying :?: that i should add a little peroxide before i decant the solution :?: i`m ready to decant so i`ll wait for your answer before i go any further :!: i will take the bubbler out so the gold can settle at the bottom :mrgreen:
> ...



Actually this should only be possible if you have added nitric, peroxide, chlorinted tap water, clorox or another substance to dissolve your gold. HCL by itself should not cause this.


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## Geo (Aug 6, 2011)

i may have had some impurity in my solution when i tried to remove solder by boiling in hcl acid but when i pulled the board out the gold foil had been removed and was not floating.at the time i didnt know about stannous chloride so i lost that little bit.i assumed the boiling hcl had put the gold into solution.i cant remember having anything else in the pot,no water or other chemical.that is a mystery ill have to explore.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 6, 2011)

Geo said:


> i may have had some impurity in my solution when i tried to remove solder by boiling in hcl acid but when i pulled the board out the gold foil had been removed and was not floating.at the time i didnt know about stannous chloride so i lost that little bit.i assumed the boiling hcl had put the gold into solution.i cant remember having anything else in the pot,no water or other chemical.that is a mystery ill have to explore.



A lot of the time it is best to set you up a container that you can put solutions like that in and let them set for a couple of days and then siphon off your solution. Put what settles to the bottom in a container and when you have a sizeable amount then process it. You can have your gold break loose in such small flakes on thinly plated material that you will not be able to see the flakes especially if your solution is heavily saturated with copper or other base metals.


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## butcher (Aug 6, 2011)

HCl and oxidizer will dissolve gold, it is possible for atmospheric air to be the oxidizer, boiling hot HCl bubbles collecting air, but if any elemental base metals in solution, if any gold dissolved it would plate out onto remaining un-dissolved metals.

This is a bit off topic but on my mind now.

I do not know this for sure, but from my observations, although gold is harder to dissolve than copper, when I put HCL and strong oxidizer on a metal of copper and gold, it appears to me that the gold dissolves very quickly (yellow in solution) and as base metals dissolve the solution gets darker say green, or brown,(plating gold out of solution back onto base metals) so I feel gold will somewhat dissolve early in solution, although if there was no or very little oxidizer to dissolve the gold in the HCl you should have very little gold dissolve, as the oxidation of the metals would be much slower, and conversion of the metal oxides to chlorides would be slower.

here is something that crossed my mind with a solution of gold and base metals dissolved in solution, example copper and gold in aqua regia, when heating solution to vapor off NOx gases, to lower excess nitric in solution,
A pure gold solution may give up the nitric easily as it concentrates and convert to gold chloride salts,
But, the copper may take these gases and make copper nitrate in solution.
copper nitrate does not give up its nitrates easily, in fact if only copper nitrate was in solution I could evaporate it dry and still have copper nitrate salts, 
And here we are not pure copper nitrate so we will eventually change the copper in our aqua regia to copper chloride solution,
my point being, not only will gold make a salt (colloid if you will with copper remaining in solution), but also make ridding nitrates more difficult, now this is speculation on my part but just another thing to consider, there is a lot of chemical reactions going on in a pot of aqua regia and metals so there may not be much way to tell if this happens or not, eliminating base metals prior to dissolving gold will result in success, base metals in solution (you better keep and understand the principle of the stock pot).


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## Geo (Aug 6, 2011)

of coarse this happened before i found this forum.thanks to all of the members here i have a basic, very basic, understanding of what i'm doing now. i actually had the material before i had a plan as to how to refine it. a web search led me to Lazersteves website and from there i followed the link here.I've spent hundreds on chemicals and hundreds more on equipment and haven't made a penny. yet. but i have over a pound of gold foils and powder and am working on the refining process. i think i have the reclamation part understood,well, at least the parts ill be using.i just finished refining my first ounce of pure gold today, when i pour it into a bar ill post a pic of it as my very first one.


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## callicom (Aug 7, 2011)

well i`ve decanted my solution into three smaller glassware that i will let settle for a couple of days so i can decant them and hopefully recover some more gold. meanwhile i seem to have quite a bit of foils left in my 5g bucket, after lunch i`ll be washing this with a little more hcl to remove the remaining copper that i`ll decant out again and repeat if need be so that i remain with only the gold and board parts that the fingers remained on. thanks for the help geo, after going through it once it will take all the guessing and hoping out of it. when i`ve decanted my three smaller glassware and got all the gold together i`ll be going to hcl and clorox and dropping the gold out with sodium bysulfite. i`ll keep posting the results, thanks again.


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## Geo (Aug 7, 2011)

no problem at all,glad i could help.remember to keep your spent solution to reclaim the copper,not only for the value but with the copper its considered toxic waste.


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## callicom (Aug 7, 2011)

well when i get to the copper part i`ll probably be calling again unless hokes could help me on this, i should know tomorow if i received my hard copy :mrgreen:


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## callicom (Aug 11, 2011)

well so far so good, i`ve washed my stuff in hcl a few time if not more and transfered everything in new clean glassware, and added about a cup of hcl with the stuff and added bleach as i stirred. i was surprised to see all the foils dissapear so quickly and even the acid clear up with the plastic particles going to the top of the solution. right now ists filtering and i`ll be dropping it in a little while. i do see three to five particles in the bottom of my yellow solution so i guess i better filter it one more time before i drop the gold.

i`ve done this in my barn using a fan and i see i`ll need a fume hood so i don`t affect my health. i looked in the section (making your own tools) but i didn`t see any good plans but mostly what seemed trial and error kind of stuff , does anyone know where there is a simple easy to build plan i can use :?: thanks for everything its nice to see that piss looking stuff since i know its the gold :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Aug 11, 2011)

you have to let the chlorine evaporate before you precipitate your gold. if you are impatient place a glass pan on your hot plate fill half way with water then place the container with your AuCl in the pan and set to high setting.be sure that the container with your gold is not sealed or pressure will build and it will burst.bring the water to a boil and let the container sit there till you see small bubbles form in your solution (dont let your solution come to a boil).take pan off the hotplate and sit on a dry cloth or oven mitt.make sure the container with the gold is open to let chlorine escape.let the solution cool to room temperature then place water in a glass container large enough for the solution and 2X that amount in water then add your solution.add SMB in small increments (about 20-30 ml at a time) and stir until liquid clears.stir vigorously till liquid becomes dark.let the solution sit over night and theres your black gold in the bottom.


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## callicom (Aug 11, 2011)

will 24 hours be enough or should i wait 48 :?:


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## martyn111 (Aug 11, 2011)

That really depends on how much bleach you have used.
If you add the bleach in small increments you will only ever have a very small amount of excess when the reaction has been completed which can be driven off with a little heat, but , if you have used a large excess and you are not using heat to expel it then the longer it will take to off gas.


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## Geo (Aug 11, 2011)

over night should be fine.you can do the whif test.fan over the top of the container with your hand towards your face,if you smell a strong chlorine smell then it still has alot of bleach. if the smell is faint then you should be ok to precipitate,too thats one of the reasons for diluting your solution with water.tap water is chlorinated,or at least it should be, so use distilled water if you can.also hard water adds impurities to your gold.


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## callicom (Aug 12, 2011)

what if i just wait 4 to 5 days could that cause some other problem that you have experienced, or is the gold just going to maintain its state for a long period of time and can be dropped even in two month if i wish :?:


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## eeTHr (Aug 12, 2011)

I've seen reports of gold chloride being stored for many months, without any problems. But if you have other substances in there, I don't know if that could cause problems or not.


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## Geo (Aug 12, 2011)

yea, that should be fine.just dont seal the container because any chlorine left will gas off and build pressure so keep the lid loose. wouldnt want your container to burst and wind up with a gold coated table top or floor. its a good idea when storing containers with gold solutions to put the containers in a plastic catch pan.


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## callicom (Aug 13, 2011)

well i`ve finaly got my gold powder sitting in water, i have no flux and no crucible so i guess it`ll have to stay that way for a while. it doesn`t look like much but i`ve taken junk and turned it into gold so i`m very happy about it. i also started another batch with the ap i had from my first batch, i added half a gallon of hcl and some peroxide. i intend to keep a tighter grip on the quantity of hcl i put in so as to make sure of copper saturation, thanks again and i`ll keep putting posts of my progress


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## Geo (Aug 13, 2011)

good deal. sounds like you have it well under control. i bought a 3" melting dish from lazersteves website.if your just making buttons or even an ounce at a time it should work fine. i couldnt find any 20 mule team borax here where i live so i bought a box from Ebay fairly cheap.one box will do for alot of gold.


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## callicom (Aug 13, 2011)

yea i`ll go check lazersteve and order a couple of them melting dishes.
what are you talking about (20 mule team borax) is that what you use for flux :?:


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## Geo (Aug 13, 2011)

yes. that's the name brand but any borax will work for flux. check your local markets in the laundry supplies section as it is used as a laundry product.


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## callicom (Aug 14, 2011)

wow, when i started all this and saw the prices of all the chemicals i figured there was a chance that i would be trading four quaters for a dollar but with this ap and all these alternative products it will be much more pleasant. now its a fume hood i have to figure out, i allready have a squirel cage type blower. i plan on plywood for the structure :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Aug 14, 2011)

use acid resistant paint and stainless steel hinges and hardware (like screws and bolts/nuts). you will need a piece of Plexiglas. some storm doors have a Plexiglas pane if you can find one it will cut down on your cost.if you do find a door the piece in it will be large enough to cut in half.install a piece on top to allow light from a lamp inside, the other half will be the hinged door on the front.be sure to leave a space of about six inches open at the bottom to allow airflow in.


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## callicom (Aug 14, 2011)

i already have plexi too, do you have a drawing of this fume hood :?: it would help pls i have boric acis is that the same as borax :?:


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## Geo (Aug 14, 2011)

sorry i dont have a diagram, but basically its just a wooden box with the open side facing you. put the exhaust going out the back side. you can use a hvac flange on the exhaust but be sure to paint it before you install it to help prevent corrosion.that is what you will attach your duct work to.it will prolong the life of your blower if you put a filter inside the hood over the flange (just duct tape it over the flange).also if your blower is inside a square metal box,all the better just attach the duct to the flange if not then try to find one at the scrap yard.put the door where it opens with the hinges on top instead of the side with the gap at the bottom. build it on a table top or if you have to put legs on it dont skimp on materials,it needs to be sturdy and level. exhaust away from structures or fences and of course away from pets and if you can down wind of the prevailing winds (here its from the north). and not sure about the boric acid,you may ask some one that may have tried it. one reason the flux is used is to trap impurities. did you have any luck watching lazersteves videos? he has a melting video you should watch.


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## callicom (Aug 14, 2011)

well my wife got some 20 mule team borax at some store, she paid 4.50$ for 2k, like you say it seams to be a lot. how do i go about using this :?: i saw aguy on youtube make a button on a 2x4, would this work, it seemed to work in the clip. so how do you do it , do you make a paste with water and mix the gold with it or do you just sprinkle some dry borax on the gold and put the flame to it :?: by the way geo my gold is like a black dust and there is some lighter looking brown dust that mixes easyer with the water, is all this gold :?:


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## Geo (Aug 14, 2011)

the flux is used to prepare your melting dish. make sure the dish is dry as any moisture will make it crack when heated. warm the dish slowly to remove any moisture, when your sure its dry sprinkle about a teaspoon full into the dish then apply heat with your torch in a circular motion melting the borax evenly over the surface of the dish. when melted it will look like a glazing. add your gold powder while still hot and add a small amount of borax on top. start melting on the outside edge and work your way to the middle to keep from blowing your gold away. ive melted silver in wood but not gold as it would add impurities while melting, same as melting in steel or even stainless steel. i bought a 1 ounce kit kat mold from Ebay and paid $17.99 plus shipping, in all less than $20. gold powder can be black,tan or even brown with a reddish tint. usually dark brown for the most part.


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## callicom (Aug 14, 2011)

thanks again for the info, i probably have a grams worth, but it will be my first button, a lot of work for the value :!: but the know how is another story :mrgreen:like you say knowledge is power :!:


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## Geo (Aug 15, 2011)

heres an example of refined gold powder.sorry pics are so grainy. this is 19.8 grams.


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## Harold_V (Aug 15, 2011)

Geo said:


> when your sure its dry sprinkle about a teaspoon full into the dish then apply heat with your torch in a circular motion melting the borax evenly over the surface of the dish.


That method works well enough if you're fortunate enough to have anhydrous borax, or borax glass, but you're far better served to heat the dish to redness, then sprinkle the borax on. It doesn't blow around so much that way. 

Harold


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## Geo (Aug 15, 2011)

Harold_V said:


> Geo said:
> 
> 
> > when your sure its dry sprinkle about a teaspoon full into the dish then apply heat with your torch in a circular motion melting the borax evenly over the surface of the dish.
> ...


thank you Harold. i was having that problem even on low pressure.


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## callicom (Aug 15, 2011)

well it seems like i keep getting gold out of my solution, i do a stainous and it keeps showing theres something in there, so i put in some mre smb and the next day there is more brown dust in the bottom, i thought it would all drop a lot faster. when i get it all i guess i`ll dry the dust in my skillet with a half inch of sand in the bottom then i`ll be ready to make my first button thanks to all the help on this forum :mrgreen: 
the copper piece i put in the other solution ( green slurpy ) has black dust fallen to the bottom, theres also like a gas stain floating on top of the solution, is that black dust the gold :?:


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## Geo (Aug 15, 2011)

callicom said:


> well it seems like i keep getting gold out of my solution, i do a stainous and it keeps showing theres something in there, so i put in some mre smb and the next day there is more brown dust in the bottom, i thought it would all drop a lot faster. when i get it all i guess i`ll dry the dust in my skillet with a half inch of sand in the bottom then i`ll be ready to make my first button thanks to all the help on this forum :mrgreen:
> the copper piece i put in the other solution ( green slurpy ) has black dust fallen to the bottom, theres also like a gas stain floating on top of the solution, is that black dust the gold :?:


after the first refining do another if you want really pure gold,it doesn't take as long to dissolve the gold powder as it does the foils.also when you dropped your gold with SMB did the liquid go clear then turn black? there is something to be said about putting an excess of SMB, a little more than is needed isnt a bad thing.if you do put too much it will make a black fluffy substance that floats forever but not to worry just put the whole container in a catch pan and add some water to the pan and place on your hot plate for a couple of hours and it will break up and settle to the bottom.this will also hasten the drop rate on your gold powder.
ok, the AR. all your values will be in the black powders on the bottom. i dont think it will be floating as ive never seen it before. wait till your sure no more will drop then rinse with water and incinerate powders. place powders in a glass vessel and add equal amounts of 50ml of water and nitric acid to remove base metals then after the reaction stops decant used solution and add a drop of nitric to see if you get a reaction, if not rinse again incinerate again the dissolve with hcl+cl.


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## TXWolfie (Aug 20, 2011)

have a qwick question is it the same borax that they use for soap making, I know they do use it for certain types of soap so maybe it could be found in any arts and craft stores.


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## Geo (Aug 20, 2011)

yes it is. i use twenty mule team borax. its sold in the laundry supply section at the market.


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## callicom (Aug 22, 2011)

well after passing through nitric and washing out the gold i dropped out of my lime slurpy with the addition of water and putting a copper piece in the solution, i added the gold to what i already had. the whole thing was sitting in water so i evaporated the water out and ended up with brown dust ( kind of a little lumpy) and a little bit of yellow mustard dust also that had made a ring around the glass. i scraped everything into a folded paper and it weighs 3 g, its more than i was expecting if its all gold. i wonder if the mustard looking stuff is pure gold :?:


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## Geo (Aug 22, 2011)

you have powder from two different processes, one with hcl and one with nitric acid. you cant wash the acid completely away after these processes so you must incinerate the powder to a cherry red and keep it there for a few minutes to rid the powder of any residual acids. if you dont it will create a weak AR in solution and you will lose values.


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## callicom (Aug 22, 2011)

so you recomend that i burn it red hot and go through ar as a final purification, i thought i was done :!: ho well i might as well do it right, but i don`t understand why i would get a weak ar :?: my second batch of pins is almost done and i plan to be more rigorous now that i`m aquainted with the processes you gave me, i probably did lose values in these first tryals, thanks geo :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Aug 22, 2011)

actually you should incinerate and then rinse in fresh hcl to remove any oxides then rinse with boiling water a couple of times, then refine again. im just learning the proper steps to pure gold myself through the teachings of Harold and a few other long time members (thanks guys).


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## callicom (Aug 25, 2011)

hey Geo, my second batch of pins and fingers is about all dissolved, i had to take a couple of gallons of liquid out so i could add hcl. i filered the couple gallons and ended up with black dust in the filters, is this gold dust :?: or am i just wasting my time with this stuff :?:


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## Geo (Aug 25, 2011)

try to dissolve a small bit with nitric acid, if it dissolves its not gold and if it doesn't then it is gold. be sure to incinerate your sample first to remove hcl because you will make AR and that will dissolve the gold and you will think it was something else besides gold. AP will dissolve a small amount of gold, thats the yellow color you see when you put the peroxide in the solution. when the solution saturates with copper the gold will be pushed out.


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## callicom (Aug 25, 2011)

i`m thinking now that when i stopped the bubbler and poured out the 2 gallons i didn`t wait to let it settle and i know there`s a lot of foils i washed out the filters with the black dust, but since all the pins were not all disolved there might be copper dust also mixed in there so i`ll have to incinerate and go through nitric as you say. is it possible to incinerate with an acetaline oxi braising tip, i don`t have one of them ovens :?: also is it possible to test the ap to see if there is still gold in there since the stanous is out of the question :?:


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## Palladium (Aug 25, 2011)

Do you not have any stannous chloride?


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## Palladium (Aug 25, 2011)

If the pins aren't completely dissolved then any gold that would have been in solution has plated back onto the pins as a black residue.


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## Geo (Aug 25, 2011)

you can use that tip, just dont melt any of the material. you just want it to get cherry red for about one minute.


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## Geo (Aug 25, 2011)

by the way, make some stannous chloride with lead free solder. cut a length of 5-6 inches and fold it to fit a small glass bottle with a dropper preferably but at least with a plastic lid and warm in hot water for a few minutes and you have your stannous chloride.


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## callicom (Aug 25, 2011)

Palladium said:


> Do you not have any stannous chloride?


the ap is already black with base mettals, i tried a stanous and it was black obveously and i couldn`t tell you if there was purple in there if my life depended on it 8)


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## Geo (Aug 25, 2011)

stannous chloride will detect very small amounts of gold. place a couple of drops of the AP in a clean container and dilute with a little distilled water till it clears enough to do the test.


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## callicom (Aug 25, 2011)

Geo said:


> by the way, make some stannous chloride with lead free solder. cut a length of 5-6 inches and fold it to fit a small glass bottle with a dropper preferably but at least with a plastic lid and warm in hot water for a few minutes and you have your stannous chloride.


yea i saw this info, you had posted it to healp some other guy`, but meanwhile i have some stanous i ordered online.


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## callicom (Aug 25, 2011)

Geo said:


> stannous chloride will detect very small amounts of gold. place a couple of drops of the AP in a clean container and dilute with a little distilled water till it clears enough to do the test.


there`s alway a way :!: now if my life depends on it i guess i`ll live :lol:


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## callicom (Aug 25, 2011)

Palladium said:


> If the pins aren't completely dissolved then any gold that would have been in solution has plated back onto the pins as a black residue.


this is some ap i had to pour off to add some more hcl, this stuff has been bubbling for 12 days now and i just keep adding hcl a quart at a time since the original gallon i put in, i`m doing this to make sure my solution is completely saturated and the gold drops out. there`s barely any pins left now, mayby a quater cup


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## Palladium (Aug 25, 2011)

Here's a trick you might try. I use plastic disposable white spoons as a spot dish alternative. When i have trouble doing a test because of the solution color i test some in a spoon. After the test sits for awhile. How long you ask? Couldn't tell you. It really depends on the gold concentration and how long you let it sit. Overnight is best for low concentrations. I'm usually in no hurry. After it sits for a couple of hours you can wash the test solution off the spoon and if you see a purple stain on the spoon then Bingo !!!


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## Harold_V (Aug 26, 2011)

Palladium said:


> Here's a trick you might try. I use plastic disposable white spoons as a spot dish alternative. When i have trouble doing a test because of the solution color i test some in a spoon. After the test sits for awhile. How long you ask? Couldn't tell you. It really depends on the gold concentration and how long you let it sit. Overnight is best for low concentrations. I'm usually in no hurry. After it sits for a couple of hours you can wash the test solution off the spoon and if you see a purple stain on the spoon then Bingo !!!


That's very good advice, even when testing with a spot plate, which I prefer, by far, over other methods. 

I have tested solutions that were cross contaminated and yielded mixed results by stannous chloride. If there's gold present (in solution), there's no mistaking the purple stain left behind after allowing the test to age somewhat. The stain appears, even when the purple color isn't obvious otherwise. 

Harold


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## callicom (Aug 27, 2011)

i always heard there was more than one way to skin a cat, i should filter the rest of my ap today then i`ll do both ways :mrgreen: what is a spot plate :?:


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## Palladium (Aug 27, 2011)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PORCELAIN-SPOT-PLATE-6-WELL-/230261909406?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item359cade79e


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## callicom (Aug 28, 2011)

a picture is definitely worth a thousand words in this case, thanks for the link. from what i understand the copper can be dropped out of the ap and the acid reused, how do you guys do that :?: , i`ve been reading hokes but i haven`t read of ap or acid clorox yet in there


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## Palladium (Aug 28, 2011)

Once you drop the Copper from ap with steel your solution is spent. The thing to do is if your solution is saturated and the volume has increased from hcl additions or H2O2 is to pour off some of the spent solution and add steel to precipitate the copper. Then you can take the left over solution that you *didn’t add steel to* and add fresh hcl and bubble air through it to use it again. Or you take fresh hcl and take a cup of your old solution before steel is added and pour it into the new hcl to jump start your reaction. By doing this you don’t have to add any peroxide to jump start the process. All you have to do is add air after that to keep the reaction going. This reduces your overall volume of solution. The only reason you use peroxide in the first place is to oxidize the copper to oxide so the hcl can dissolve it. Once copper is in solution the air from your aquarium bubbler takes over and it supplies the necessary oxygen from the air to keep the reaction going. You can actually start with just hcl and air but the progress will be slow at first until the copper concentration picks up in the solution. Fresh acids don’t always mean faster rates. In this instance the more copper in solution the better because your etch rate will pick up considerably. The only thing that governs the etch rate at that point is the free hcl that exist in the solution. Most people don’t use their ap to completion because they think it is saturated to much. A gallon of hcl will hold about 3 lbs of copper. Not other metals, copper! I love mine saturated and plenty of air.


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## callicom (Aug 28, 2011)

so i just drop a piece of carbon steel in there and what happens to the copper, it just drops to the bottom or does it stick to the sleel :?:


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## callicom (Aug 28, 2011)

also does nitric disolve carbon steel :?:


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## Geo (Aug 28, 2011)

re-use your AP solution only adding fresh hcl due to lose of taking material out and evaporation. i cant remember the name of the effect but bubbling air through a solution causes it to evaporate faster. when the solution turns brown and your batch completes take the material out and leave the bubbler in the solution bubbling and it will go from brown to a deep green. i cant tell you what happens during this time but some of the copper will come out of solution as powder in the bottom of the container, remove this before your next batch.


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## Geo (Aug 28, 2011)

callicom said:


> also does nitric disolve carbon steel :?:


nitric acid will dissolve steel. i don't think the addition of carbon to the steel as it is such a low percentage would make any difference. the copper will come out of solution as steel goes in and normally will pile up around the piece you put in. copper will not stick to steel without heat and flux.


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## callicom (Aug 28, 2011)

ok, i`ll just keep some ap for my next batch and drop the rest. this batch i got all the values and burned the hcl out by putting it in a cast iron pan and drying it up, then i passed it through ntric and got the rest of the base metals out. but when i tried to burn the values with nitric in my cast iron pan it rusted right away and turned orange so i got it out of the pan and passed it through nitric again, that why i asked if nitric desolved steel , it looked like it did but i wanted to make sure.
then iput it in a crucible and burned it red hot and i could see and smell the nitric coming out, nice. the crucibles i bought were white porcelin and it fell apart after use, is there some better ones that are reusable :?:


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## Geo (Aug 28, 2011)

did you heat slowly? porcelain will absorb water from the air and if you heat too fast it will cause the porcelain to crack and bust. put it in the oven and heat on low for 15 minutes then turn the heat up to high for another 20-30 minutes to remove the moisture before heating with a torch and then still heat with a torch slowly till it becomes red. this will prolong the life of you crucibles and melting dishes.


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## callicom (Aug 28, 2011)

is this a one time treatment or do you recommend doing this every time


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## Geo (Aug 28, 2011)

every time. but if your melting gold its worth the effort. :lol:


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## callicom (Aug 28, 2011)

yea i know what you mean one of my crucible busted while i was incinerating and i lost some value on the concrete slab  ho well i chalked it up to aprenticeship :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Aug 28, 2011)

when i melt i use a large cast iron pot to set my mold and melting dish in. ive worked too hard to get it to that point and watch it fly everywhere.


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## qst42know (Aug 29, 2011)

callicom said:


> ok, i`ll just keep some ap for my next batch and drop the rest. this batch i got all the values and burned the hcl out by putting it in a cast iron pan and drying it up, then i passed it through ntric and got the rest of the base metals out. but when i tried to burn the values with nitric in my cast iron pan it rusted right away and turned orange so i got it out of the pan and passed it through nitric again, that why i asked if nitric desolved steel , it looked like it did but i wanted to make sure.
> then iput it in a crucible and burned it red hot and i could see and smell the nitric coming out, nice. the crucibles i bought were white porcelin and it fell apart after use, is there some better ones that are reusable :?:




Something doesn't seem right here. Did you wash with water at all?


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

wash with water :?: yes i washed with water but what doesn`t seem right, mayby i didn`t wash enough, could you explain :!:


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## Geo (Aug 29, 2011)

qst42know said:


> callicom said:
> 
> 
> > ok, i`ll just keep some ap for my next batch and drop the rest. this batch i got all the values and burned the hcl out by putting it in a cast iron pan and drying it up, then i passed it through ntric and got the rest of the base metals out. but when i tried to burn the values with nitric in my cast iron pan it rusted right away and turned orange so i got it out of the pan and passed it through nitric again, that why i asked if nitric desolved steel , it looked like it did but i wanted to make sure.
> ...


you cant wash acid out of your material with water not even with boiling water. you rinse with water to remove soluble salts not acid. you have to incinerate to remove acid.


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

i just picked up 177 cpu, 52 lb of boards and a couple pounds of memory stycks, i got the whole thing for 380$, i should make a good profit or did i just mess up


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## jimdoc (Aug 29, 2011)

callicom said:


> i just picked up 177 cpu, 52 lb of boards and a couple pounds of memory stycks, i got the whole thing for 380$, i should make a good profit or did i just mess up



That depends on what type CPU they are. If they are P-3 and P-4's then you probably paid too much in my opinion. You can check thriftybits.com to see what he would pay, or boardsort.com who seems to pay the best prices.

Jim


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

there's 97 ceramic ones, a few 386and 496 , some say pentium mmx, one big one that says intel pentium pro and looks like the whole back plate is plated. the rest are plastic cpu


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## Geo (Aug 29, 2011)

if you reclaim 7 grams of pure gold you will have made a profit. not alot but a profit anyway. can you post a pic of what you bought?


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

when i get home tonight i'll try but i'm not too familiar :mrgreen:


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## philddreamer (Aug 29, 2011)

The Pentium Pro can yield .5g each. But, become familiar with the process...


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

wow that would be nice, that would mean that i made out like a fat rat :lol: i guess i'll find out soon enough, could i run these cpus in ap after i took out the back plates


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## trashmaster (Aug 29, 2011)

please tell us more about the 52lb boards you got with this deal and are the plastic CPU's black or green ????  

if you could brake down the ceramics ,, as to AMD, 386,486, pentium, p4, black fiber, green fiber.. and so forth????? :roll: :roll: 

It will depend alot on the boards ,,,,,, BUT I think you will come out all right.. :lol:


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## qst42know (Aug 29, 2011)

> this batch i got all the values and burned the hcl out by putting it in a cast iron pan and drying it up, then i passed it through ntric and got the rest of the base metals out.



Acid washing foils recovered from AP will never get all the base metals out.



> when i tried to burn the values with nitric in my cast iron pan it rusted right away and turned orange



Now you know why you don't want incinerate in cast iron. A nitric wash was a good choice to remove the iron mistake but had you just rinsed with water several times to remove the iron nitrate you could have went directly to dissolving the foils. Gold precipitants are selective enough to tolerate a small amount of contaminates and still drop gold fairly clean.



> then iput it in a crucible and burned it red hot and i could see and smell the nitric coming out, nice. the crucibles i bought were white porcelin and it fell apart after use



What type of porcelain crucible did you incinerate in? 

A lab type porcelain dish such as Coors makes or a crucible made of clay bonded silica used for melting metals.


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

i have the pics on my desktop but i`ve never posted on a forum, help somebody :!:


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## Geo (Aug 29, 2011)

when you click "post reply" scroll down till you see a box the says "If you wish to attach one or more files enter the details below." then in bold type "Filename" click "Browse" and select the location your pics are in (make a new folder on your desktop and copy the pics to the new folder for easy access) double click the pic and make sure theres type in the box just left of "Browse" then click the "add the file" button.


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

heres a pic


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

heres some more


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

heres some more


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## Geo (Aug 29, 2011)

i think you got a good buy. like i said, you need 7 grams to make a profit and i think you have that covered and then some. there will be other PM's there too, most notably the MCC's have palladium. those boards are loaded with them. there will be measurable amounts of PT too.


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

my plan of action is to burn off the pins of the ceramic cpu`s and treat them with the pins in ap. i want to cut off all the finger and whatever other plastics cpu`s, memory etc and treat them apart from the pins


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

trashmaster said:


> please tell us more about the 52lb boards you got with this deal and are the plastic CPU's black or green ????
> 
> if you could brake down the ceramics ,, as to AMD, 386,486, pentium, p4, black fiber, green fiber.. and so forth????? :roll: :roll:
> 
> It will depend alot on the boards ,,,,,, BUT I think you will come out all right.. :lol:


well for the breakdown i hope the pics give you a good idea, i think i should make out pretty good


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## callicom (Aug 29, 2011)

qst42know said:


> > this batch i got all the values and burned the hcl out by putting it in a cast iron pan and drying it up, then i passed it through ntric and got the rest of the base metals out.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


if i pass through ap and then incinerate and pass it through nitric and it doesn`t get rid of base metals what else am i supposed to do :?: 
the crucibles were chinese :lol: it all i could get around here quickly
and yes its the last time i incinerate nitric in my cast pan :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Aug 29, 2011)

i incinerate in a steel can, like canned food with the top cut out. burn it well to remove the plastic liner. its thin and heats quickly. i put mine on my hotplate after i burn plastic and label off with my torch, then pour my material in and let it heat till it starts smoking then apply my propane torch to the outside and move to direct flame into the can until the smoke stops by then its cherry red. you can only use the can once as the chemicals and heat cause the steel to oxidize quickly. you incinerate when you go from one acid to another. dissolve with hcl+cl and filter, when you precipitate the first time that will remove most contaminants. then BOIL in fresh hcl for about 15 minutes. let cool and then BOIL in clean water for 15 minutes. let cool and rinse in ammonium hydroxide (straight white ammonia from the market) for 5 minutes. BOIL in clean water for five minutes and let cool the decant and force dry in the same vessel. dissolve again in hcl+cl, filter, then precipitate. rinse with clean distilled water, BOIL in fresh hcl for 15 minutes let cool. BOIL in clean distilled water and let cool. rinse with ammonium hydroxide for 5 minutes decant and BOIL the final time in clean distilled water and force dry. gold powder should be a light tan color. you should have high purity gold.


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## rewalston (Aug 29, 2011)

Hey Geo, I've checked around the different markets here at home and the ammonia they have is a yellow color, but doesn't list any additives. Do you think that the color would make a difference?

Rusty


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## Geo (Aug 30, 2011)

i dont think so. just dont get the lemon scented. :lol:


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## rewalston (Aug 30, 2011)

Geo said:


> i dont think so. just dont get the lemon scented. :lol:


Thanks Geo, if I remember correct it is lemon scented, I wasn't sure if it was going to work but when I get to that point in time that I need it...I guess I'll find out.

Rusty


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## callicom (Aug 31, 2011)

hey guys,i just finished reading the post (ar method for ceramic cpu`s) i now have about 97 ceramic and 80 plastic, i want to treat them separately, the fiber cpu`s with the card fingers but i`m not sure what would be the safest way, sugestions :?: i`d like to get it right :|


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## callicom (Sep 1, 2011)

well from reading the existing posts i`ll prety much keep doing things in ap but i`ll separate the plastic and pins in two batches. i started working on the boards to take a break from my fume hood construction and cut off all the fingers and ended up with one pound of fingers :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Sep 1, 2011)

nice. are you keeping everything you bought separate from what you already had to see if you made money on it? the ceramic cpu's can be done in AR safely, just break them in quarters as best you can place them in a glass container that will hold them all and still have room for the reaction. add hcl until you cover all the material. add nitric acid in small increments waiting for the reaction to stop after each addition to keep from having an excess of nitric in solution. watch carefully and when you cant see more gold decant to a fresh container then add fresh hcl to the material and complete the reaction by adding nitric in small increments untill theres no reaction. this will insure you have all the gold from inside the cpu's. take the first solution and add a small piece of gold and see if theres a reaction, if not dilute with equal amount of water and precipitate your gold. this solution will almost always contain other PM's so dont discard. you will have to neutralize the nitric in the second solution. i have never been able to evaporate nitric acid out of solution but maybe another member can lead you through it or you could add a button of gold till the reaction stops.


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## callicom (Sep 1, 2011)

you got that right, i want to make sure its worthwhile to buy the boards because if i end up with the equivalent values of what it costs i'll just go buy bullions :lol: then i would only refine what i could get for free, but some folks pay for the stuff, i imagine they could add also. i was reading another post that you posted on about the sand looking stuff that traps your gold, i think i'm having that problem right now so i'll do as you say--
incinerate and put in fresh hcl. its amazing the amount of info on this site, its a real blessing.
i'm going to start a thread on my fume hood with pictures and my design, i think i have the vacumm with this design 8) but i'll find out


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