Help: Best tutorials for refining mined gold flakes

Hi

So I think I've spotted an opportunity in the area I live in. There is a lot of guys rolling around the rivers here with sleuce boxes and pans and selling flakes of gold for under market price to middle men. I have absolutely no experience with this but I want to buy some of these guys ounces of gold and refine it and melt it into 24 karat bars and sell it on myself. I have a bit of cash saved so I can scale up this operation a bit if need be with actually renting a premises and getting the correct equipment etc.

There is a ton of information relating to different things here. To be honest as a complete beginner I am lost. Could someone with more knowledge and experience make a list for me of what I have to learn and which tutorials cover it best.

Also if theres anyone on here who is actually running a larger scale gold refinery - I wouldn't mind an email address or contact details about possible arranging to observe the process.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards
Sean

To start you should read Hokes book, and learn how to process gold, and silver, study dealing with waste in the safety section, after you gain an understanding of how to process, we can help with some details, the placer gold can be anywhere from 16/24 to 18/24 gold depending where it comes from, this will mean you would need to in-quarter it with silver as you would with karat jewelry, remove base metals before dissolving the gold, also before setting up a business, you will need working experience, then you could slowly work your way into a business, building it up slowly, this will take some time unless you already understand how to recover and refine these metals, this is not something someone can tell you how to do in just a few hundred posts, or with a simple list of instructions, but your goal is achievable if you’re willing to put in the hard work to accomplish it, if so then begin your journey with studying Hoke’s book and then studying the forum.

Welcome to the forum.
How are you sure that the panners and miners are selling below spot, without an assay or a lot of experience you can't tell exactly how pure the gold is, the guys buying it have no doubt been doing it for years and know exactly or very closely what to expect from each parcel purchased. You would need to buy samples off several miners and have assays done to determine the average value of the gold in your area. As Butcher has correctly pointed out this isn't an easy trade to learn but all the relevant information is here on the forum for free and if you really want to learn then your in the only place to get that education, be sure to get that education before spending any money for as Harold points out money doesn't chase fools!