# Partial yield showoff of HUGE finger toll



## Topher_osAUrus (Feb 28, 2018)

Got a huge shipment of fingers in awhile ago.

Weather and life got in the way for a wee bit, but, yesterday I had a chance to get in the lab.

Still probably 1/3 of them left that just *wont* let their fingers go... Coincidentally, they seem to all be the newer pcb type. The older fiberglass ones gave it up a lot easier.

A tub that has mostly cleaned fiberglass fingers in it.. Thought I had another picture of the other tub, full of newer pcb style, but I dont at the moment, so here is just the former case.


It also probably didnt help that the 5 gallon buckets were loaded full, shaken to pack them in, then loaded with more. 




And the obligatory snow globe
https://youtu.be/0_E_ZXQzttg


----------



## anachronism (Feb 28, 2018)

How much base material did you have Toph?


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Feb 28, 2018)

(Tisk tisk) i did not weigh it, but, based on what my boss man said (and what the UPS boxes reported) it is around 75lbs, or 34 kg for those using the superior measurement system.


----------



## denim (Mar 1, 2018)

So at 75lbs, maybe 72 lbs without the box, and about 1.5g/lb I would say you will end up with about 3 to 3.5oz of gold out of this. That's my guess anyway. Can't wait to see the button, bars, whatever you pour.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Mar 1, 2018)

denim said:


> So at 75lbs, maybe 72 lbs without the box, and about 1.5g/lb I would say you will end up with about 3 to 3.5oz of gold out of this. That's my guess anyway. Can't wait to see the button, bars, whatever you pour.



Me too!
Heck, I cant wait to have the rest of the foils free from the fingers and in the beaker. Just to see what a 2L beaker full of foils feels like.

It is finally getting to be decent weather here, so with the increase in ambient temp, the buckets should be moving along better than their former snail pace now.


----------



## kurtak (Mar 1, 2018)

8) 8) 8) 8) 

Kurt


----------



## anachronism (Mar 1, 2018)

If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion Toph. Make it a regimen to always weigh a toll refine yourself regardless of what your client says. It will prevent a sticky situation if the yields go south , and will also give you empirical data to use to back up your yield data. 

Also it allows you to estimate a yield on a large batch from a good sized sample with enough accuracy to pay a client out fast, leaving you with no pressure to do the whole toll within certain time limits. 

That's the official version. 

The unofficial version is that it gives you yield data for your own use and hauls your butt out of a potentially messy situation if things don't go according to plan. 8) 8) 

Food for thought mate.

Jon


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Mar 1, 2018)

anachronism said:


> If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion Toph.
> Jon



Input is always welcome on this end Jon, especially from those like yourself with plenty of experience to back it up.

I must admit, I want to start doing that. Just to cover my rear end. So far though, I have been fortunate to have had great bosses/clients. That isn't to say that one down the line will be as kind and understanding as those who I have had pleasure of working for so far.

Of course, on the small batches of stuff that I get. Karat, goldfill, sterling - I weigh that stuff as well as document it on receiving and testing - should there be say, a piece of silverplate along with the sterling, I send them a pic of the item with the test confirming that its plated and ask if they want it sent back with their fine metal after all is said and done or if it should just go in the junk bin.

Honestly, the biggest reason I didn't weigh this one was - I'm small fish, and that kind of weight needs a big boy scale!


----------



## anachronism (Mar 1, 2018)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> Honestly, the biggest reason I didn't weigh this one was - I'm small fish, and that kind of weight needs a big boy scale!



Not if you break it down into smaller pieces. 8) 8) Doh!


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Mar 1, 2018)

anachronism said:


> Topher_osAUrus said:
> 
> 
> > Honestly, the biggest reason I didn't weigh this one was - I'm small fish, and that kind of weight needs a big boy scale!
> ...



Hehehe
Weighing 75lbs of fingers 600 grams a time sounds like just as much of a chore as rinsing all the foils off the fingers.

I really need to get set up for big lots like this, so they can be handled with ease and speed.

Mainly -CN
And a large scale would be nice too


----------



## anachronism (Mar 1, 2018)

I feel your pain mate. 

After all it's expensive gearing up properly. I appreciate that these large scales are so expensive that you might need a loan....

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10kg-Digital-Electronic-Kitchen-Postal-Scales-Postage-Parcel-Weighing-Weight-UK/183032859006?epid=805923423&hash=item2a9d9bc97e:g:N6EAAOSwSKtaZwmd


----------



## denim (Mar 1, 2018)

You can always use a bathroom scale.


----------



## silversaddle1 (Mar 1, 2018)

I have a small digital postal scale that will weigh up to 50 pounds. It was under 100 bucks and have been using it for 7 years now. Enough memory, processors, fingers, and pins have crossed that scale to buy a nice house.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Mar 1, 2018)

anachronism said:


> I feel your pain mate.
> 
> After all it's expensive gearing up properly. I appreciate that these large scales are so expensive that you might need a loan....
> 
> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10kg-Digital-Electronic-Kitchen-Postal-Scales-Postage-Parcel-Weighing-Weight-UK/183032859006?epid=805923423&hash=item2a9d9bc97e:g:N6EAAOSwSKtaZwmd



Ive adopted the policy mentioned by you previously
-Buy once, Cry once-

Its just been a matter of deciding what is a greater "necessity" as far as kit goes, and then deeming it worthy of the next purchase for the build up of the lab. 



denim said:


> You can always use a bathroom scale.


Well, my wife says ours must surely be broken. :roll: 
You have no idea how many I've thrown out



silversaddle1 said:


> I have a small digital postal scale that will weigh up to 50 pounds. It was under 100 bucks and have been using it for 7 years now. Enough memory, processors, fingers, and pins have crossed that scale to buy a nice house.



That is a good tid bit of information, thank you. I will keep an eye out for postal scales now too. I did not know they were so robust.

But, actually- a kind offer from a member may have me a good large scale without much looking on my part
-man do I love this forum


----------



## silversaddle1 (Mar 1, 2018)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Weighmax-2822-75LB-postal-shipping-scale-Battery-and-AC-Adapter-Included/162212887536?epid=530091243&hash=item25c4a43bf0

Laugh all you want but I promise you these little scales are tough as nails and reliable. This one is 75 pounds. Mine is 50 pounds.


----------



## glorycloud (Mar 1, 2018)

Shipping and receiving scales are invaluable. I normally get mine on sale at Global Industrial:

https://www.globalindustrial.com/g/packaging/scales/shipping-receiving/digital-shipping-receiving-scale


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 1, 2018)

https://youtu.be/qcHpFqRNReY

Me shoving my fist in the foils from 75lbs of finger boards

https://youtu.be/FGUlR6u6gak

And starting to dissolve them.


Will post precipitation tomorrow


----------



## cosmetal (Apr 1, 2018)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> https://youtu.be/qcHpFqRNReY
> 
> Me shoving my fist in the foils from 75lbs of finger boards
> 
> ...



Toph,

I didn't make it to your "dissolve" video yet.

I was watching you make :shock: "moves" :shock: on your gold foils and my wife overheard your moanings coming from my laptop and she's convinced I'm watching some XXX website :shock: :lol: :shock:!

I can't use the computer for an hour . . . grounded. :shock: :lol: :shock:

James


----------



## Palladium (Apr 1, 2018)

Work faster! :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## denim (Apr 2, 2018)

So Topher, any update on the final yield on this batch?
Dennis


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 2, 2018)

denim said:


> So Topher, any update on the final yield on this batch?
> Dennis



Not yet, i just got done with the dissolving. I went about it slowly but surely. Adding small increments of oxidizer and letting it heat on low. I didnt start using heat for the first couple hours after my first addition, solely because i didnt want to experience a gold-foil-volcano.

It took over 27 hours to dissolve it all. Right now it is settling down after a tiny amount of sulfamic that was added (maybe 4mL of saturated solution) and the sulfuric addition (there was alot of "dirty" finger boards with solder bits. So, lead sulfate is bound to be in there now. 
-it will all settle down, filter well, and precipitation videod and posted here tomorrow (afternoon/evening most likely)



cosmetal said:


> I was watching you make :shock: "moves" :shock: on your gold foils and my wife overheard your moanings coming from my laptop and she's convinced I'm watching some XXX website :shock: :lol: :shock:!
> James



Sorry about that! It took all I had to not start crying after I was done. 
...she would have REALLy worried about your watching habits then. :lol:


----------



## patnor1011 (Apr 2, 2018)

A little trick here. 
Let cleaned stripped finger boards dry thoroughly. Then put some in a bucket and shake well. Like really well. You will be surprised when you see what is on the bottom no matter how well you cleaned them the first time.


----------



## silversaddle1 (Apr 2, 2018)

Since I have about 100 pounds of fingers sitting here, I'm really interested in the final melt here. :G  :G  :G


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 2, 2018)

patnor1011 said:


> A little trick here.
> Let cleaned stripped finger boards dry thoroughly. Then put some in a bucket and shake well. Like really well. You will be surprised when you see what is on the bottom no matter how well you cleaned them the first time.



I most certainly will, thank you for that bit of advice!

...kind of saddening now that i went over them with a sieve bucket and my fine tooth comb-fingers, only to find out it was all for nothing but a false sense of accomplishment and a sore back!

I will gladly shake them down again though if it catches any strays


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 2, 2018)

silversaddle1 said:


> Since I have about 100 pounds of fingers sitting here, I'm really interested in the final melt here. :G  :G  :G



Selective leach for the win!

Im very interested in the results too (im sure a lot of people are  )
But, even if you took your 100lb lot, and split it up into 4, then ran them all, I bet they would all vary quite a bit. Maybe not though.

I think it primarily depends upon how clean cut they are, as any detritus board thats not holding fingers is just dead weight that's not sweetening up the kitty. Im sure the manufacturer, year, use, price of tea in china, and cycle of the moon, etc.. matter a wee bit too, but, Im willing to wager that the cleanliness of the cut is the biggest variable of them all -or the one with the biggest factor in the formula, anyways.


----------



## silversaddle1 (Apr 2, 2018)

We'll see. I've trimmed 100's and 100's of pounds of fingers so I'm pretty good at getting a nice clean close cut.

Ya got to admit, those are some pretty clean, close cuts! Some are not, but you work with what you have.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 2, 2018)

silversaddle1 said:


> We'll see. I've trimmed 100's and 100's of pounds of fingers so I'm pretty good at getting a nice clean close cut.
> 
> Ya got to admit, those are some pretty clean, close cuts! Some are not, but you work with what you have.



Those are very nice indeed! Cant get much closer than that


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 7, 2018)

Sorry its been awhile, been quite busy with stuff and things, and gold.

So, after a brief discussion with the gentleman i am running this toll for, he kindly asked me to keep the yield between the two of us. So, I am sorry to say I lied to you guys and will not be sharing that. I can however, show a picture of a very nice shiny button that I just melted up after much hard work.

I couldnt bare the thought of gouging it, or disfiguring its shape, so i smashed the crucible instead of prying it out or pouring it out into water. It is now having the button separated from the bottom of the crucible with some weak sulfuric.

I will post a clearer picture after its out of the acid.



Again, sorry. I should have clarified with him before posting anything regarding the lot. It is completely my fault.


----------



## Shark (Apr 7, 2018)

Been waiting for this one. I wish you could post the weight, but I can understand your reason for not doing so. Still it is nice to follow along from start to finish.

By the way, very nice looking button!


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 7, 2018)

Shark said:


> Been waiting for this one. I wish you could post the weight, but I can understand your reason for not doing so. Still it is nice to follow along from start to finish.
> 
> By the way, very nice looking button!



Yeah, i feel bad for making the assumption I could post,,, leading you all on like, well, I dont know- just leading you all on then having to let you know I am a fool for not asking a simple question firstly,


The precipitation was great though. 

I chose to use sodium chlorate to dissolve the gold. It took 24 or 25 hours, then I "denoxxed" for another 5 on low heat (to remove the free chlorine left from the oxidizer)
--after filtration, I added the aqueous smb a pipette at a time. It obviously still had a wee bit of free oxidizer, so I chose to heat it again until morning (a mere 6 hours away at this time). When I woke up, I saw beautiful gold flakes at the bottom of the beaker. It was amazing. I can only assume it was from a very long and slow reduction process.

Anyways, after seeing that, I went about adding pipette after pipette of the precipitant. Eventually it all came down a lovely tan color with shiny flakes mixed in.

I did manage to get one shiny chunky flake out with a pair of tweezers while ai was weighing up the lot before melt. (Pictured)

All in all, it was a great opportunity. I was lucky enough to have the pleasure of working the lot.

I will take the generous advice given earlier and will be rerinsing the fingerboards just to make sure i got every speck of gold I possibly could.

Thank you for your continued investment in this thread, again, sorry I errd by initially miscommunicating with my boss/client/customer.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Apr 7, 2018)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> So, after a brief discussion with the gentleman i am running this toll for, he kindly asked me to keep the yield between the two of us. So, I am sorry to say I lied to you guys and will not be sharing that.


Hmm... I just reviewed the thread and I don't see where you ever promised to share the final yield, so I don't think you lied.



> I chose to use sodium chlorate to dissolve the gold. It took 24 or 25 hours, then I "denoxxed" for another 5 on low heat


Since you used chlorate instead of nitric, you didn't actually deNOx since there were no NOx compounds.  

Dave


----------



## rickzeien (Apr 7, 2018)

What are the advantages/disadvantages of sodium chlorate vs SMB

Sent from my LG-H872 using Tapatalk


----------



## silversaddle1 (Apr 7, 2018)

Well I guess my 120 pounds will go on E-Bay then.


----------



## rickzeien (Apr 7, 2018)

After re reading the post I see that sodium chlorate was used to replace nitric acid NOT the SMB

Sent from my LG-H872 using Tapatalk


----------



## ARMCO (Apr 7, 2018)

Very nice! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Smack (Apr 8, 2018)

No need to tell the exact number on this lot, most of us here know exactly what to expect from fingers.
That gold does look clean though !


----------



## anachronism (Apr 9, 2018)

silversaddle1 said:


> Well I guess my 120 pounds will go on E-Bay then.



Of course it will. Nobody on here is gonna pay you what you want for them to recover gold.


----------



## silversaddle1 (Apr 9, 2018)

anachronism said:


> silversaddle1 said:
> 
> 
> > Well I guess my 120 pounds will go on E-Bay then.
> ...



Well that is good business, wouldn't you agree? But I was keeping my options open on maybe toll refining some of this stuff I have around here.


----------



## nickvc (Apr 9, 2018)

silversaddle1 said:


> anachronism said:
> 
> 
> > silversaddle1 said:
> ...



Depends on whether you want the money or the asset...


----------



## snoman701 (Apr 9, 2018)

silversaddle1 said:


> anachronism said:
> 
> 
> > silversaddle1 said:
> ...



Inventory is supposed to move, money is supposed to work for you...while you've had that 100 lbs of fingers sitting in boxes, you could have flipped that money multiple times. 

Gold isn't moving, and even if it does, refiners fees will change with it. 

Even then, E scrap is hardly investment grade material. Further, I don't know any refiners that really WANT to refine fingers. I've done it once, won't even do it again....was offered a bag of them a few weeks ago, told them to sell them on Ebay. 

The only reason fingers are popular is because they can be done without nitric very easily.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Apr 9, 2018)

snoman701 said:


> The only reason fingers are popular is because they can be done without nitric very easily.


Well, there are a couple other reasons. The ability to do them without nitric easily is definitely a plus. 

Whether they're done with AP or nitric, they're a predictable type of scrap to process. That makes them good for beginners. The only base metals should be copper and nickel, so a beginner can get positive results if they follow the instructions here. Things don't get complicated by a myriad of other metals found in other ewaste.

A beginner can also "see" their gold throughout the recovery process. They can dissolve the base metals to release the foils, filter them, rinse them, and concentrate them all without ever losing sight of their gold. Processing pins in a stripping cell requires a leap of faith as the gold disappears before your eyes.

They also look good! Great eye candy whether you're buying or selling. :twisted: 

Are they good feed material for a refiner? I guess that depends on what other options you have. If you can stay busy on karat scrap, fingers don't have much allure. If you're picking MLCCs off boards and incinerating ICs, fingers look pretty good.

Dave


----------



## snoman701 (Apr 9, 2018)

Yeah, they were cool to do that one time...but from a toll perspective, I just don't see it as profitable. Lots of volume for relatively low yield, with everyone and their brother advertising that they can do it cheaper. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't throw them in the garbage...but I'd have to be really hungry before I'd do them for someone else. But then I've got a backlog of ceramics and a dead blower on the hood, so I don't see that happening any time soon.


----------

