Another dang Texan!

[Linedawg]

Hello goldrefiningforum members. My name is Steve, I use Linedawg as a username simply because it's part of my email as well. For the last year +\- I've been attempting to be self-employed. For 15 years prior to this I was an electric power lineman. (Hence the email and user name) ;-). I have recently gotten into silver and gold stacking and or saving/collecting. It's an entertaining hobby first and a possible source of extra income on down the line. I enjoy reading and I love learning new things. I've read many threads/posts on various topics already. Very entertaining and informative. I'm only 25 pages into C.M Hokes book. Easy and fun read but a bit tedious on my IPhone. I still prefer to hold a book in my hands. And no, I do not have internet/wifi access on a computer. I did but seldom used it and $50/mth was wasteful when I can accomplish most of the same with my phone. Now I miss it. ;-) Any way. That's me in a brief. I also enjoy riding fast Harleys. I have two, one '97 FX and an '05 Roadking. Both are 140mph bikes that are also daily riders. I demand reliability and longevity along with performance. I'll mostly lurk on here but you may hear from me on occasion. Good hunting and happy refining to all. Be safe.
Steve Whittington

 

[Pantherlikher]

Hey Steve
Welcome to the forum.
People helping people learn.
There is tons of information on PMs(Precious Metals), how to collect and refine them.
Dig in and enjoy the ride.
Being in the electrical filed, you may have knowledge and contacts to find PMs. Pick your own brain while reading and see if you can come up with places where Silver may be hiding.

Good Luck and may the Gold Bug be kind when it hits you.

B.S.
Billy Scott but been always told I'm full of it.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Welcome to the forum Steve. You'll find a link to a printer friendly copy of Hoke's book in my signature line, so you can print your own hard copy.

I also suggest reading EVERYTHING in the Safety section of the forum, especially the Dealing with Waste topic. No amount of precious metal is worth jeopardizing your health or the health of those around you.

Follow the Guided Tour created by LazerSteve. It will provide an introduction to the forum and numerous valuable links including the General Reactions List. Be sure to follow the link to his web site as he has many outstanding videos, a collection of great reference documents, and he sells a lot of the supplies needed to get started including detailed instructional DVDs. Samuel-a also has a lot of videos, guides and tutorials at his web site Gold-N-Scrap.

bmgold2 has also been putting together a useful set of links for beginners. You'll find a few links there that are duplicates of the ones I'm providing, but he has also taken the time to link to many other very good threads on specific topics of interest. His thread is here: New Member Answers.

Once you understand the basics you can start to try some small scale experiments. If there's something you don't understand or you get stuck, there will be someone here to help you.

Best of luck,
Dave

 

[Linedawg]

Thank you for the "welcome" and the guidance. I will definitely be checking out the safety info. As I am not familiar with handling chemicals that will be my first stop. I have plenty of outdoor space and a large shed separate from my house. Right now I'm enjoy the "digging" for information. I have some things and materials on hand to begin making a few ancillary pieces of equipment. This gives my hands and body some thing to do while I try to absorb and process what I'm learning.

Billy Scott,
I had given that a bit of thought. Older substation equipment can contain substantial amounts of PMs. Of course we're talking about quite large pieces of equipment. The older pad mount switch gears used "silver sand" fuses. As the name implies the do contain silver ribbons surrounded by a corse sand. The amount of silver would depend on the size of the fuse. These were current limiting designed to "blow" (silver melted out and created an open point) at a given over current level. I once through away boxes of these per instruction from a manager. We no longer had the older switches so he didn't want them taking up storage space. I would like to have those back now. Probably several ounces of silver sitting in a landfill. But that was 10 or more years ago. At any rate think you for rattling my brain. Sometime we forget to look in our own back yard before going out to search for treasure.