1st post 1st button

[supercharged04]

Hello all! I wish I would have found you guys a lot sooner. After looking through the forms and reading Hokes book if I did this again I will do it with Ap. This was my first try to recover gold and it worked but I have learned that ebay does not have all the info lol. (It did work though) for $20 I was told to go to radio shack and get pcb etchant you guys can guess the rest. I ran about two lbs of fingers roughly trimmed but not bad. I did take a for sure loss in dollars invested but I would assume that is the case for most 1st timers. Tell me your thoughts. 1.6 grams

 

[artart47]

Hi there!
Welcome to our forum. It's beautiful! look at it shine! GREAT FEELIN ain't it?
artart47

 

[supercharged04]

Yes it’s a great feeling. I was a bit worried at first because of rookie mistakes, I used way way to much borax, and when it cooled it looked like silver. I guess it was borax after finding this site I decided to remelt hotter and swirled it in the crucible and right at the second it set up I picked it out with tweezers and placed in water. Then I did a little cleaning with some polish and a buffer and she shinned right up. I still might be able to get a little more out of the melted borax in the dish I can still see a little shine in it.

 

[Geo]

nice first button. im afraid its not as pure as it could have been. when you get more experience, it may turn into another learning project on how to refine karat gold.

good job. keep up the good work.

 

[supercharged04]

ya I am aware its not pure and I would myself like to know its kt. however the guy on ebay swears that its pure and stopped responding to me after 1 email and calling him on his bs lines. He would tell me you don’t need any flux just melt it, its as pure as it can get. I believe he has no clue as to what he is even selling. After 2 weeks of extensive reading on here I have come to learn more than I ever could have imagined and haven’t touched the vast majority of it. But anyways I have about 40lbs of electronic stuff to pull low grade pins out of and am planning to run those in an electro cell. Because I live in an apt. for the time being I don’t plan to do any refining just collecting low grade buttons until I get a house where I can have more freedom, until then I can study and collect lower grade buttons.

 

[Geo]

this would be a good opportunity for you to learn to use a testing kit. i bought one on Ebay with all the acids and stone with a short "how to" pamphlet for $15.test with known karat to see how the acids react and then test your buttons side by side.

 

[supercharged04]

I like they way you think. now time to find someone with a bit of gold they dont mind me doing a scratch test on. :x I wonder if the girlfind would mind, probably not to smart with whit gold. i looked at one when i bought my cruicible but theu\y only had a kit for $59.99

 

[AztekShine]

Amazon has cheap test kits with gold samples for about $50

 

[its-all-a-lie]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SELL-OR-BUY-GOLD-TEST-IT-WITH-A-LARGER-8-BOTTLE-TEST-KIT-MORE-TO-SEE-/140701588881?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20c277dd91 i bought this one from ebay and it is the best deal i have found yet. after shipping, you are into it for under $30.

 

[supercharged04]

do you guys think a jewler will test this? i have to take a ring in to get cleaned soon.

 

[nickvc]

Welcome to the forum.
I think if I were you I wouldn't even try refining or using chemical recovery procedures. You said you live in an apartment and I guess you have no proper extraction, be warned all chemical processes give off fumes and gases which will at best wreck anything metallic and at worst will hurt or kill you, your family and your neighbours...
Please take this in the manner in which it's meant, here on the forum we stress safety first and foremost and try to ensure all who come here understand the risks and dangers of all the processes and methods we use.
This doesn't mean you can't do mechanical recovery, harvest the items and parts that have value and the forum is full of threads and posts about what to look for and ways to find them.
While your collecting you can study the processes and methods that you need to know and even accumulate the necessary items to do your recoveries and refining and all the while you pile of goodies will be getting bigger.
I fear that if you continue to process this material at home help will not be too forthcoming, no one wants to help you hurt yourself!

 

[supercharged04]

Noting but polishing my gold was done in my apartment. I am sure there are people that thick headed as to do stuff like this wherever they want. Without regard to other or them selves. I was in the country when I did my recovery at a buddies. Also not saying any of these processes are safe but this method was great for a first timer from everything I have read as I had to do no mixing of chemicals.
Thanks for your worries though. And I can see how you thought that. What I ment was I need my own place so I don't have to drive 40 minutes to play.

 

[nickvc]

Well I'm pleased to hear that you didn't do this at home.
Despite you thinking it was safe as you didn't mix any chemicals you dissolved some base metals, so you would create fumes whether you could see them or not, I'm not actually lecturing you but warning others who read this thread, we had one newbie intent on processing in his apartment on the balcony, after been advised of the dangers,in a block, in a city.... :shock:
I'm only preaching to get readers to understand that even commonly available chemicals when mixed can become unstable, toxic, dangerous and deadly if not treated with respect. As has been stated many many times no golds worth your health or worse.

Do your studying and keep harvesting, your golds safe so long as you don't lose it and I'm looking forward to hearing your progress when you can start your refining properly, in many ways you have an advantage, you can't process due to the situation your currently in but you can get all the processes firmly in your mind for the time you can start so newbie mistakes from rushing in should be avoidable if you follow the advice here on the forum.

 

[Geo]

a jeweler can give you an approximate karat thats as close as you can get without an assay, and if your there on other business he may do it for free. a bit of advise, dont polish. simple as that. any one you deal with that knows what to look for can tell and will think your trying to be dishonest. if its impure, then let it reflect that in its appearance because they will test it anyway. besides, when you polish, your removing metal and thus removing weight. :|