Abrasive Mill

[Ohiogoldfever]

If we look at this like it were material in a gold pan you would want a shearing side to side action to get the material moving back and forth while remaining fluidized or in suspension. It allows bits to slide under another or plinko
It’s way between and below another.

If you vibrate a gold pan full of semi round objects it won’t sort it’s self completely.

The vibrating action only really acts to compact the bits. Allowing themselves to be sorted to be as close to one another as possible. Just like using a concrete vibrator to compact and work the work open spaces (bubbles) out of a poured wall.

 

[malphorian1973]

Preparing another load of shred for the mill, whole ram, cpu's chips and low grade pins.

View attachment 53154
View attachment 53155

How do you get your material shredded to this point? Do you use an industrial paper shredder? I thought I read in your post somewhere something about a paper shredder. If yes, do you have a pic or two of said shredder? I have a very large, heavy duty paper shredder myself and I was wondering if they compared. I LOVE this system and would really like to build one if I find it feasible. Thank you in advance for your time.

 

[goldshark]

To stratify according to specific gravity, you need to allow for the settling in a fluid state. A funnel kind of works. An upward flow of water will provide the flow, suspension, only allowing what is heavier than the specific gravity created by the pressure/flow volume relative to the up flowing column of water. Increasing the flow through a given orrifce (size of opening of funnel bottom) will allow for the heaviest particles only, to settle through the up flowing column, if dialed in correctly. This is extremely temperamental, due to a variety of circumstances including particle shape and size, variation in flow rates, and the rapid decrease in suspension rates due to the increasing area of the funnel.
This is why a mineral jig is much more efficient. By creating a large surface area, and the addition of a specific gravity media bed, it recovers the heavies that exceed the media bed in a clean separation, and allows the middlings to accumulate above the media bed. hopefully you can understand what I am saying. If not, please look for an old copy of the Mining Engineers Handbook, written by Peele, 1941 publish date.
Since you haven't stated what size you are grinding to, it is tough to give a recommendation on concentrating equipment for your product. Sieve test with assays would be very beneficial to finding what your optimal liberation size is.
If fine grinding, you may need a couple of flotation cells installed in the spare bedroom.

 

[stoneware]

To stratify according to specific gravity, you need to allow for the settling in a fluid state. A funnel kind of works. An upward flow of water will provide the flow, suspension, only allowing what is heavier than the specific gravity created by the pressure/flow volume relative to the up flowing column of water. Increasing the flow through a given orrifce (size of opening of funnel bottom) will allow for the heaviest particles only, to settle through the up flowing column, if dialed in correctly. This is extremely temperamental, due to a variety of circumstances including particle shape and size, variation in flow rates, and the rapid decrease in suspension rates due to the increasing area of the funnel.
This is why a mineral jig is much more efficient. By creating a large surface area, and the addition of a specific gravity media bed, it recovers the heavies that exceed the media bed in a clean separation, and allows the middlings to accumulate above the media bed. hopefully you can understand what I am saying. If not, please look for an old copy of the Mining Engineers Handbook, written by Peele, 1941 publish date.
Since you haven't stated what size you are grinding to, it is tough to give a recommendation on concentrating equipment for your product. Sieve test with assays would be very beneficial to finding what your optimal liberation size is.
If fine grinding, you may need a couple of flotation cells installed in the spare bedroom.

I totally agree jig would work better. Just experimenting killing some time waiting on my nitric to show up.

The acid arrived late this afternoon, no more time to play.

 

[stoneware]

How do you get your material shredded to this point? Do you use an industrial paper shredder? I thought I read in your post somewhere something about a paper shredder. If yes, do you have a pic or two of said shredder? I have a very large, heavy duty paper shredder myself and I was wondering if they compared. I LOVE this system and would really like to build one if I find it feasible. Thank you in advance for your time.

Worked good when the blades were still sharp, this second load of shred has almost killed it.

Was a landfill score, had a massive paper jam.

I liked it so much that I'm going to build a larger more powerful unit that will handle a whole motherboard - minus the heat sinks.

Also want to shred my plastic waste.

 

[stoneware]

Actively looking for opensource cut files for CNC laser, something similar to the one in the tube video would meet my needs
.

 

[goldshark]

You may want to try a hammer mill. They can be constructed fairly cheap, great input to output size reduction, much greater life than a paper shredder. Why reinvent the wheel? Watch a youtube video on basic construction and operating procedures.
The above machine is great for grinding cars and other recyclables, but the sticker shock will give you a coronary. I saw one at Mine Expo last year for a small table top size (500 lbs.) cost was in the $25,000 range. If you are on a budget, a well built grizzly and a 2 pound hammer will smash a 60 pound lot in a half an hour. Drink a couple cups of coffee for faster through put.

 

[stoneware]

You may want to try a hammer mill. They can be constructed fairly cheap, great input to output size reduction, much greater life than a paper shredder. Why reinvent the wheel? Watch a youtube video on basic construction and operating procedures.
The above machine is great for grinding cars and other recyclables, but the sticker shock will give you a coronary. I saw one at Mine Expo last year for a small table top size (500 lbs.) cost was in the $25,000 range. If you are on a budget, a well built grizzly and a 2 pound hammer will smash a 60 pound lot in a half an hour. Drink a couple cups of coffee for faster through put.

This thread is too demonstrate the benefits of abrasion on low grade gold plated scrap.

The paper shredder is a joke, but it did last long enough to make a second load which will be on the rollers tomorrow morning.

I'm confident that I can build a decent shredder for under $500.00, the municipality discards the leading edge of their grader blades on a regular basis.

This is some of the best abrasion resistant steel money can buy, or get for next to free. There's enough steel left to make cutter blades for a shredder.

The colony will not cut rusted or painted steel on their laser, but somewhere in this province there has to be a water jet.

I've owned four hammer mills, the 2 hp not enough, a 5 hp a bit better the 10 hp would dim the lights in my shop during start up.

The last hammer mill was the real McCoy, came from a feed mill, PTO driven from a tractor and my little Case with a gasoline engine could power it up and keep the hammers spinning. That is if you did not feed the mill to much at any given time.

Paid $100.00 for the feed mill.

Was using that hammer mill to chop copper wire, then with a large hydraulic press making briquettes.

With the scrap price of copper everyone has become a cord cutter, so insulated wire is almost non-existent.

I no longer chase it.

 

[stoneware]

I no longer live on the rural property, I'm now surrounded by neighbors. A hammer mill even with the cyclone is dusty and lots of noise.

The people at city hall would shut me down within the first week, the shredder on the other hand, is in my opinion better suited to my current living arrangement.

Smaller foot print, less horse power with less noise and no dust. I'll be able to reduce my plastic waste into unrecognizable shred.

Computer and other metal case's into shred will make for a good compact load, scrap yard is an hours drive and fuel is not getting any cheaper.

Two months ago gave the hammer mill away, then less than a week ago gave the old Case tractor to another fellow with big dreams.

You can only store so many toys on a quarter acre lot and it's already started to fill up. Fortunately my back yard is secluded from the street.

I have a double garage that I've rewired, insulated and paneled, just need to add a heat source to make it a comfortable man cave.

 

[stoneware]

I ran the last and final load wet, until one of the experts says that I'm wrong I'll claim the float as precious metals.

Used a paint brush to skim off the float, less water.

Tomorrow I'll dry and weigh it up, there will be more laying on the bottom of the tub.

The waste water passed through an activated charcoal filter to collect any colloidal gold., created by over milling.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I ran the last and final load wet, until one of the experts says that I'm wrong I'll claim the float as precious metals.

Used a paint brush to skim off the float, less water.

Tomorrow I'll dry and weigh it up, there will be more laying on the bottom of the tub.

The waste water passed through an activated charcoal filter to collect any colloidal gold., created by over milling.

View attachment 53193

I can't say much regarding the float or not
But a fine filter might do better than AC, the AC do not have much affinity towards non ionic (metal) Gold, do it?
And it is quite coarse filter wise.

 

[stoneware]

I can't say much regarding the float or not
But a fine filter might do better than AC, the AC do not have much affinity towards non ionic (metal) Gold, do it?
And it is quite coarse filter wise.

Then I'll do as before, acidify the water then add some scrap aluminum, last time recovered about half a gram.

 

[orvi]

Interesting toppic, that is for sure. I was thinking that quite a bit of gold would be smeared onto the plastic/solder and components on the board. Clearly, I was wrong and it can be done I will watch tis thread, since I always wanted some big equipment to run some lowgrade stuff at volume...

But unfortunately, I lack the space needed - on the balcony of one-bedroom flat, I cannot quite build up the impact mill or such I think neighbors won't be very supportive on this venture

 

[stoneware]

I can't say much regarding the float or not
But a fine filter might do better than AC, the AC do not have much affinity towards non ionic (metal) Gold, do it?
And it is quite coarse filter wise.

It's been mentioned in numerous threads, make sure incineration is complete un-burnt carbon left behind will in later process's lock up values.

AC ( activated carbon ) in my opinion is the holy grail, hospitals administer it orally for accidental poisoning or drug overdose. No home should be without it.

Below a water filter fitted with an AC filter, a small pump will be used to feed the filter.

 

[stoneware]

The foam float was reduced to 10 grams which looked very much like copper but when subjected to hot nitric got unexpected but pleasant results.

To those new to refining, what's missing from the hot nitric are the nitrous oxide fumes which are forever present when reacting with base metals.

When adding nitric acid to finely divided metal powders its advisable to have plenty of head room in the vessel as nitric will react with base metals violently possibly boiling over the top.

Right now just waiting for the leach to cool down, want to see if there's any color from perhaps copper.

The add either table salt or HCl ( hydrochloric acid ) to see if there's any silver present.

The engineer of a steam powered ship would take a water sample from the boiler then by adding a small addition of silver nitrate could tell by the formation of silver chloride if the boiler was taking on sea water.

The large cabinet is destined to be my fume hood.

 

[stoneware]

It was fiber from the boards clogging up the 100 mesh sieve.

 

[stoneware]

Running the load wet in a confined space was a bad idea the foam cushioned the bits and pieces from fully abrading.

Going to run the load again dry.

 

[stoneware]

A Harbor Freight cement mixer would accomplish the same job with the benefit of easier off loading.

 

[stoneware]

My shredder is looking up, water jet operation cost $175.00 an hour, AR 450 3/8" $55.00 square ft.

Asked if i had off the shelf gears with round diameter holes if they could be cut into a hex profile - no problem

Large gear reducers often show up at the scrap yard, mostly discarded because of a motor burn out.

One shredder I looked at used a 40:1 reducer, each cutter had .005 shim between each cutter tp prevent binding.

Not going to bother with trying use grader blade cutting edges, the price of AR is reasonable.

 

[stoneware]

From the second load, 211.2 plus another 10 grams from the foam - lots of base metals in this lot.