Excellent job, your hard work and paying attention to details is paying off, in good results and hopefully profits, I bet when the wife holds those beauties in her hands, she really likes you new interest and will support you in this, keep up the good work, I suggest you bury some of those pretty gold balls, so those little ones of yours will have what they need later.
100 Ounces of pins
- Thread starter tek4g63
- Start date
Help Support Gold Refining Forum:
Things have been very busy at work so I have not yet had the chance to get an accurate weight yet. I'm going to keep taking them to work with me every night till I get them weighed. Maybe tonight will not be so crazy.
Here are a couple more pictures. I may re melt them because the surface is getting scratched up. I'm keeping them in a small baggie in my shirt pocket and it had robbed the surface of that mirror surface that they had in the first picture I took. But you can still see the cool red hot color that shines in the pipes.
Here are a couple more pictures. I may re melt them because the surface is getting scratched up. I'm keeping them in a small baggie in my shirt pocket and it had robbed the surface of that mirror surface that they had in the first picture I took. But you can still see the cool red hot color that shines in the pipes.
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Geo
Well-known member
do you think its close to the twenty grams i thought they would be close to?
Here is the final weight on a good scale! See the picture below.
Geo, I think that I would have got closer to 20 grams if I had finished all the pins, not lost so much to the filters due to inexperience, and finished dropping the gold from the solution that I set aside for practicing my testing technique. Before you ask, yes I saved all my filters for incineration and I tested all my final solutions with stannous (all negative) before putting them in my stock pot. 8)
Jack,
No I will not be making one large button because I will be selling 5 of these little guys and putting one aside for my kids collage stash. There is no need to reprocess them to remelt them as long as you don't use a contaminated melting dish, melting the gold again will not affect it's quality.
Geo, I think that I would have got closer to 20 grams if I had finished all the pins, not lost so much to the filters due to inexperience, and finished dropping the gold from the solution that I set aside for practicing my testing technique. Before you ask, yes I saved all my filters for incineration and I tested all my final solutions with stannous (all negative) before putting them in my stock pot. 8)
Jack,
No I will not be making one large button because I will be selling 5 of these little guys and putting one aside for my kids collage stash. There is no need to reprocess them to remelt them as long as you don't use a contaminated melting dish, melting the gold again will not affect it's quality.
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boutselis said:
Thank you for taking the time to read my thread. I hope it was able to help you in some way. I will be posting a type of summary this weekend and it will have a few details about how I plan on processing my next large batch of pins. Hopefully that post will be able to answer your questions. Can't wait to see how you progress in this great hobby.
Smack said:
Thank you! Don't worry, when I process my filters and finish up the pins that I had to put on hold, I will post what I got from them and that may just be that missing gram 8)
etack
Well-known member
what were you pins from and did you do a surface area calculation on them first to get an estimate.
nice job 8)
Eric
nice job 8)
Eric
They were from various things, connector pins (never used), pins used for testing electronics in a manufacturing facility, and several other applications. No I did not get a surface area calculation, but it would have been interesting to have made one then compared it to my actual end result. If I were buying these materials then I would have solid data for sure, but I currently get all my materials for free.
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2011
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I just read this entire post .
Why were adding more acid all the time?
2 gallons of acid should have done these pins just fine.
Your first gallon of acid might of made it, not sure on the full carrying capacity.
But you would have been done in a week had you not just relied on your air bubbler for oxidation.
It is in there for more for agitation, making the solution move and keeping the reaction running.
You need to be adding more oxidizer all the time to jump start the reaction back up to full speed.i
Please test you left over solution with stannious .
With using this much acid and no oxidixer is why it took so long.
Nitric acid is $7 a gallon here if you buy it in a 5 gallon container.
Trying to find a way to ship it out to people here that can not find it.
There always is some left in solution to drop out later , I guess because we run the process hotter because we use way more oxidizer in process.
Why were adding more acid all the time?
2 gallons of acid should have done these pins just fine.
Your first gallon of acid might of made it, not sure on the full carrying capacity.
But you would have been done in a week had you not just relied on your air bubbler for oxidation.
It is in there for more for agitation, making the solution move and keeping the reaction running.
You need to be adding more oxidizer all the time to jump start the reaction back up to full speed.i
Please test you left over solution with stannious .
With using this much acid and no oxidixer is why it took so long.
Nitric acid is $7 a gallon here if you buy it in a 5 gallon container.
Trying to find a way to ship it out to people here that can not find it.
There always is some left in solution to drop out later , I guess because we run the process hotter because we use way more oxidizer in process.
bswartzwelder
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2011
- Messages
- 660
Richoc,
Where are you located that Nitric acid is only $7 per gallon?
Where are you located that Nitric acid is only $7 per gallon?
rickbb
Well-known member
bswartzwelder said:
yeah, at that price I'll take 5 gallons.
Rich, that's like telling someone that when they use a shot of starting fluid to start their engine in sub-zero weather, they need to keep spraying the stuff in while they're driving to keep their engine running at top speed. While it's true the stuff will make their engine race, it will cause them problems. The air bubbler doesn't just agitate the solution - it adds oxygen. Adding more hydrogen peroxide does exactly the same thing.richoc said:
That's exactly the problem many beginners have when they keep adding peroxide. The idea of using AP is to dissolve the base metals before they dissolve their gold. You could also just dump the whole batch of pins in AR and dissolve the whole lot very quickly, but it's not the best approach.
If you have developed your own methods that work for you, that's great, but it's not good advice to give others.
Dave
I agree with FrugalRefiner here.
When using copper II chloride, adding too much oxidizer will become a problem, it is the copper II chloride that we are dissolving copper with (not the oxidizer, and the acid).
We may need to add HCl acid, and air (or a little 3% H2O2) to rejuvenate the copper II chloride as it becomes more of a copper I chloride solution, but these are not added to speed the reaction, or to make it dissolve copper faster...
Note: it is not HCl or H2O2 That we use to dissolve copper, these are used with copper to make copper II chloride.
It is actually the copper II chloride that we use to dissolve more copper.
We just add more acid or oxidizer as needed to keep the copper II chloride in a healthy state, so that will dissolve more copper, using the acid or oxidizer to convert CuCl back into CuCl2...
Thin copper does not take too long to dissolve in this solution, but if the copper is thicker like with pins it will take longer, that is the nature of it, trying to speed it up with more acid or adding too much H2O2, will do more harm than good.
Temperature (within reason) can help some, to speed it up somewhat, or slow it down if the weather is too cold, but even this has to be done within reason, as it can be a double edge sword, some heat will help the reactions, but can also set up another set of problems.
Studying the documents on the copper II chloride leach found on Laser Steve's web site will help you get a better understanding of how this leach (or copper etching solution) works, and studying the forum will also help as it has been discussed in great depth.
When using copper II chloride, adding too much oxidizer will become a problem, it is the copper II chloride that we are dissolving copper with (not the oxidizer, and the acid).
We may need to add HCl acid, and air (or a little 3% H2O2) to rejuvenate the copper II chloride as it becomes more of a copper I chloride solution, but these are not added to speed the reaction, or to make it dissolve copper faster...
Note: it is not HCl or H2O2 That we use to dissolve copper, these are used with copper to make copper II chloride.
It is actually the copper II chloride that we use to dissolve more copper.
We just add more acid or oxidizer as needed to keep the copper II chloride in a healthy state, so that will dissolve more copper, using the acid or oxidizer to convert CuCl back into CuCl2...
Thin copper does not take too long to dissolve in this solution, but if the copper is thicker like with pins it will take longer, that is the nature of it, trying to speed it up with more acid or adding too much H2O2, will do more harm than good.
Temperature (within reason) can help some, to speed it up somewhat, or slow it down if the weather is too cold, but even this has to be done within reason, as it can be a double edge sword, some heat will help the reactions, but can also set up another set of problems.
Studying the documents on the copper II chloride leach found on Laser Steve's web site will help you get a better understanding of how this leach (or copper etching solution) works, and studying the forum will also help as it has been discussed in great depth.
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2011
- Messages
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I am in Milwaukee Wisconsin.
i buy diirect at a acid supply here in West Allis , a small Milwaukee town.
I get lab grade nitric acid at $7 a gallon at 5 gallons and up.
I have found no way to ship it with out paying a $50
Haz. Mat fee to the shipper UPS that is.
Have a buddy that works in the office at FedEx and we can not even figure out if they would handle it.
Lab grade Sulfuric acid 68 degree is the same cost.
We have been stripping gold pins with AP for so long, I can not remember when it started.
Read my post I know the air bubbling through adds a tiny little bit of O2.
We run the same acid till it stops working, by feeding more peroxide each day some times 2x 3xs a day.
We run the air bubbles as high as possible to agitate the reaction, plus add a tiny bit of O2.
We use a real air compressor and run multiple tanks at a time off of it.
Tank could run on a larger fish tank air supply.
We have a AP tank design that works so sweet we could market them if there was a larger market.
My need is to get them done ASAP and get past the gold recovery method and on to refining it.
I think he did a great job I just hope to help speed up his next AP processing .
i buy diirect at a acid supply here in West Allis , a small Milwaukee town.
I get lab grade nitric acid at $7 a gallon at 5 gallons and up.
I have found no way to ship it with out paying a $50
Haz. Mat fee to the shipper UPS that is.
Have a buddy that works in the office at FedEx and we can not even figure out if they would handle it.
Lab grade Sulfuric acid 68 degree is the same cost.
We have been stripping gold pins with AP for so long, I can not remember when it started.
Read my post I know the air bubbling through adds a tiny little bit of O2.
We run the same acid till it stops working, by feeding more peroxide each day some times 2x 3xs a day.
We run the air bubbles as high as possible to agitate the reaction, plus add a tiny bit of O2.
We use a real air compressor and run multiple tanks at a time off of it.
Tank could run on a larger fish tank air supply.
We have a AP tank design that works so sweet we could market them if there was a larger market.
My need is to get them done ASAP and get past the gold recovery method and on to refining it.
I think he did a great job I just hope to help speed up his next AP processing .
Geo
Well-known member
3% H2O2 is still enough to put gold into solution if you add it and there's not enough base metal to absorb it. That's why it's not recommended on the forum. It's your pins and chemicals, feel free to do with them whatever you want. The problem is many members come here with no knowledge of what copper(II) chloride is or what it can do. The problem here is in the name. AP is a true refining technique where gold is put into solution using hcl and hydrogen peroxide much like we use hcl/Cl (bleach). If we used copper(II) chloride in the description instead of AP, it may help some. As it is, beginners show up and want to do the fastest and simplest process for Escrap. If they find your post and follow it by adding H2O2 over and over, it will lead to problems and a thousand questions why.
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2011
- Messages
- 103
It works faster way faster.......
The agitation of the air stirs the solution and moves the foils off the pins faster exposing the base metal be it just copper the better that way I get to recover some good copper later on.
The faster the acid can contact the basemetals the faster it works, but O2 from air supply totally inadequate for fast stripping of the gold plate.
The agitation of the air stirs the solution and moves the foils off the pins faster exposing the base metal be it just copper the better that way I get to recover some good copper later on.
The faster the acid can contact the basemetals the faster it works, but O2 from air supply totally inadequate for fast stripping of the gold plate.
