First Batch Size

Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

JackWaggons

Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2013
Messages
20
Out of pure curiosity. I have been collecting gold plated pins ( board pins, vga pins, gps/phone antenna blocks). All of them have been separated into full plated and partially plated.
My question is for a first newbie batch run. How much weight in pins should I start with? Most of the full plated pins are deep yellow/light orange. They appear to have a thicker plating than the light yellow hue of flash plating. However, looks can be deceiving. I pulled most of the pins out of old aircraft electronics/navigation units. I am an aircraft mechanic and I scrap the old units for free. Boss does not like the clutter in the shop. I am seeing ranges of .001-.008% yields in my research and was just curious what I should start with/ what is the minimum yield recoverable.

Jack
 
Hi jack, the minimum recoverable is zero :evil: :lol: the maximum is what your focus should be. If you tested in the range of .001-.008 then that would be your maximum recoverable yield. As far as how much to start with, please share how large your cell is.. You could start with one lb and run continous batches, I assume your doing a sulfuric strip. Let the gold powder drop and keep adding pins until you run out, clean the powder from your cell and proceed to AR purification. You should be able to use your electrolyte almost indefinitely. Be safe, have loads of fun and let us know how it goes. :p Jonn.
 
Haha so funny with the zero :p. I have yet to do any batches ever in my life. I am eager to start and was just curious what is a recoverable amount of foil. I was planning on doing an AP soak not a
Sulfuric deplate. I am too cheap to get the charger rig and all that. If I shoot for a 1/4 gram is that even capable of recovery?

Jack
 
I would go with batch size more then yeild.
What's the biggest batch your equipment and you think you can handle start to finish. That should dictate how much you do.
Remember, plated pins piled together make 1 big pile with little room for fluid to work. So make sure it's small enough you can aggitate well to allow solution to work on everything.

BS.
Gettin antsy to begin processing. I'm running out of room to store till the weather breaks.
 
I have two 1000ml beakers so I have a little room to work with. I have some computers coming to me for free. I have 100g of pins so far think I will save up some more.

Jack
 
When working with AP,if your chemical balance is even slightly off,you will have trouble finding 1/4 gram of gold, there may very well be deposits of copper and other undesirables in the bottom of your beakers. You should run multiple batches, one after the next until you get a nice color on the bottom. Once you get it right, you will always remember what colors to look for. Even with AR, 1/4 gram is a tiny amount. It looks like dust in the bottom of the beaker. I would recommend you work very carefully when processing such small amounts as to not lose any. Try using a syringe to draw off your liquid once it is completely clear and see through. If foggy, let it settle further, it may take overnight or longer. Once you get close to the powder, gently tip your beaker slightly and place something under it to keep it slightly tilted. Anything about 3/4" thick should be plenty. You may then draw off more clear solution leaving the gold dust behind. When drawing off such small amounts of powder, it has a tendency to swirl if you draw too quickly so pull slowly on the plunger body. If any powder gets drawn, push it back out and add water to your beaker, let settle yet again and retry. Hope this helps, Jonn.
 
Helps a lot! I am doing this as sort of a hobby/ a little money on the side. So I don't have time to collect tons of stuff. Like I said, I have about 100g of fully plated pins and antenna modules to run. I am still debating whether or not to start now or be patient until I collect more. I have read many posts where people get ahead of themselves and it ends up backfiring. I have finished Hoke and I read on here for several hours a night (ya my week nights are a real party) :roll: .

Jack
 
Jack, you don't have enough material to work with. You'll be lucky to see anything with just 100g of pins. You need at least 453.59+grams (1 lb) to make it even worth your while. Wait until you get 1 lb or more before you begin deplating. Also, if you're thinking about using a sulfuric cell to deplate your pins, the solution may not even get dark enough for you to even notice anything, if you only have 100g to work with.

Kevin
 
Working with small amounts of scrap of any sort is hard work, I'd equate it to doing fire assays where accuracy and diligence are mandatory. With the processes we use it's very very easy to lose, we do recover them later if we use the right techniques, values through spills, splashes, filter papers etc and on a small volume of material it makes the recovery and refining loses seem very large whereas with bigger volumes they are comparatively small.
Bide your time and keep collecting and make the effort worth while, your good going nowhere unless you throw it away or lose it processing it.
 
Back
Top