Trying to cupel

Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I was planning to do some hot water washes to get all solubles out, followed by a roast and a HCL leach and then AR to get any gold out. This copper came from stripped pins and a small batch of unprocessed plated pins, so very little or no silver to be expected.
I'll test a bit first with a nitric leech and see if anything cements out on copper, or if any tin is present in the slimes.
I'm doing this to learn, get experience and as a hobby, I'll be happy if I find half a gram of gold in there, the majority was first processed in the sulfuric stripping cell.
 
I have had this going more then a day the liquid is turning less blue and the copper is starting to stick around the staainless dish the brazing rod that is submerged is turning gray and brittle... as it goes it should from my understanding the silver should fall inside the plastic and then i can scrape the sides of the dish to get the copper... 2 questions is it possible for the rod to still resemble a rod when all the copper is out or should it completely disintegrate into the black slime.... and the rod is 5% phosphorus where does that go?
 

Attachments

  • 20211126_081310.jpg
    20211126_081310.jpg
    972 KB · Views: 4
I assume you are working with a copper sulfate cell. To refine a silver brazing rod.
The whole rod will dissolve. The grey will be your silver sulfate.
There is just not much copper in there to replenish your electrolyte with copper to keep the levels up.
Your brazing rods will disintegrate to the point where you can not make contact to the tiny leftover pieces.
Lift the anode bag to put a contact rod on top to get the last bits, if the anode bag is not full of slimes.
leaving the plastic pipe open at the bottom, will drop all other stuff than copper into the bowl.
 
I assume you are working with a copper sulfate cell. To refine a silver brazing rod.
The whole rod will dissolve. The grey will be your silver sulfate.
There is just not much copper in there to replenish your electrolyte with copper to keep the levels up.
Your brazing rods will disintegrate to the point where you can not make contact to the tiny leftover pieces.
Lift the anode bag to put a contact rod on top to get the last bits, if the anode bag is not full of slimes.
leaving the plastic pipe open at the bottom, will drop all other stuff than copper into the bowl.
The plastic pipe is closed on the bottom to catch the silver... once the solution is clear i will clean out and separate and start over
 
Ok I got some of the gray out and dried it and put it in the furnace with some lead (I can't remember the weights my note book is elsewhere) and melted it down for a while but it still didn't come out looking nice if I clean it with a wire wheel it looks silver and it rings nice but from what I have seen it should look nice without having to clean it
I assume you are working with a copper sulfate cell. To refine a silver brazing rod.
The whole rod will dissolve. The grey will be your silver sulfate.
There is just not much copper in there to replenish your electrolyte with copper to keep the levels up.
Your brazing rods will disintegrate to the point where you can not make contact to the tiny leftover pieces.
Lift the anode bag to put a contact rod on top to get the last bits, if the anode bag is not full of slimes.
leaving the plastic pipe open at the bottom, will drop all other stuff than copper into the bowl.
 
Back
Top