Help where do I start to learn these skills?

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butcher

In Remembrance, Nov. 2023
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We wish to learn a skill to find to recover and refine gold from scrap and electronic trash.
These skills take many years to learn, and many more years to get good at it.
So where do we begin?

We do not begin by mixing acids with metals, trash or rocks, as this is not only dangerous but just stupid without having some kind basic understanding of the chemistry involved and the dangers, and knowing how to properly and safely deal with the reactions and the waste products.

Gold fever is the first thing we need to learn to overcome, gold fever causes blindness and will make someone jump off a cliff blindly chasing gold, it is the drive to learn but also an obstacle to learning.

Well, I have started this thread in hopes of helping some of our new friends in getting started, to get them to learn to study, to learn safety first and discuss it, and then move on to doing a few getting acquainted experiments.

Our goal here is to learn to begin, not to discuss different ways of doing things or different refining methods.
There are so many different ways to go, and many members will suggest a different way to go, this will only confuse our new member, we all need to be on one track, or let one member at a time help with a situation, but all following the same basic ideas or procedures...


To begin we will use dealing with the waste thread, as a place to begin our study.
Then move on to discuss some of the dangers involved, and some ways to help protect ourselves.
Then we can proceed to some small getting acquainted experiments.
Gaining an understanding of how some metals react in solution.
Then maybe do some experimenting with the Cupric chloride leach.
and a simple experiment to dissolve and recover gold without nitric.

Basically helping our new friends get started safely.
 
To help our new members out, here are some must read links.
Dealing with waste:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=1300

Guided tour to the forum:
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=796#p6873
A list of very usefull links put together by Lazersteve.
 
Ask your questions before trying to do things. (It is easier to help you fix it that way)

Check to see if the video you tried to follow is from an older member here, preferred to do that before attempting to duplicate the results. (A video lead me here as well)

Read Hoke until you need glasses, if you have glasses read it until you need new glasses. (my new ones will be here right after Christmas)

Think of the forum as an encyclopedia, read and cross reference using the search function. (I am not a big fan of the function but it does produce some good stuff and worth an effort before hand)


I may add to this list later as well.
 
Hey, good day.
I'm new to the forum and noticed this post of yours so I wanted to ask you a few questions, please?
I have successfully collected gold flake (of course AP process) from fingers and recently attempted a recovery from CPU pins. That was challenging as I tried to soak in HCl first to remove the solder (as I thought I had to do prior to treatment with Nitric to remove the base metals) and noticed this issue - There was a precipitate (tin compound?) that fell out WITH some gold and I had a lot of trouble trying to separate them. Also, it appeared that something (the Tin compound?) was plating on the pins and the more HCl I added would just add more plating and fine gold particles that settled out. I eventually just treated it all with HNO3 and did end up with Au foils, but I'm sure I lost some yield in the process.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
Thx,
Buckly
 
Tin chloride salts are soluble in HCl although stannous chloride will hydrolyze to soluble stannic chloride if diluted...
I answered the question as I understood it here:
Please keep the discussion of your question in one thread.

https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=28362&p=301339#p301339
 
Hello everybody,
I am brand new to the extraction/refining hobby after watching some videos and want to try my hand at it. I a decent sized pile (1/2 Kilo or so) of some close trimmed ram fingers I had been collecting and want to go about stripping the gold and refining it. Ive heard several different methods and want to know what is good to go for a newb. Much thanks if anyone has a step by step process for ram fingers and the like. Thanks again 👍
 
Start your study with safety, learning to use the chemicals safely, understanding the dangers, the best way to protect yourself, and learning how to properly deal with the toxic waste generated from these operations.

Learn to prepare your material, which may include mechanical separation, or maybe a step to remove troublesome metals like tin or lead from solder...

Study the cupric chloride etching process improperly called the acid peroxide process, or AP which will etch copper and other base metals leaving gold foils.


The recovered gold can be dissolved and refined using HCl and sodium hypochlorite (bleach), heated to remove free chlorine gas, and precipitated with a reducing agent...
 

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