Noob in search of knowledge

Ok so been a scrapper for about 20 years and just started e scrap a couple years ago. I process around 1500 lbs of misc boards a year and got tired of low grade (10 cents lb) midgrade (20 cents lb) and built a hammer Mill outta scrap I had laying around thinking that I would make more recovering all the ferrous and non ferrous metals. After of course pulling the CPUs,daughter boards as well as memory boards before they get milled. So my first question is how fine a mesh would I have to run to recover the gold on a shaker table if even possible. Second question is can the gold plating even be separated from the pins with a hammer Mill? After many many hours of tinkering I came up with a water separator to float out the plastic and fiberglass then all the ferrous material is removed. I run the remaining material on my shaker table which works better than I hoped it would. I mention this only because where my number 1 tailings which should be gold I am recovering a very dark almost metallic black sand like material which I've saved out of pure curiosity as to what is it? Thank you in advance for any information or wisdom.

Gorillatactics28 said:

I mention this only because where my number 1 tailings which should be gold I am recovering a very dark almost metallic black sand like material which I've saved out of pure curiosity as to what is it?

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Sounds like tantalum if it isn't magnetic.

Gold plating is so thin that you can't just hammer mill it off the surface, it will follow the metal it is plated onto. Any gold plating you remove from the surface will be so small particles that they stay suspended in the water.

Göran

Did you do a magnetic separation of the material before milling?