first foils showing

[the iron dwarf]

recently started a very small batch of fingers and plated boards in CuCl2,
cut off fingers
depopulated boards with a chisel
checked and found boards with either partial gold plate or complete gold plate and those boards I put in HCL to remove solder ( am keeping this HCL separate to only use on solder )
washed repeatedly in H2O
washed in boiling H2O and most solder is gone
checked it was about ph7 with litmus paper
then scraped away some solder mask on each type and those with gold underneath I put in warm caustic soda, similar to lasersteves solder mask removal but did not want to get it hotter than needed.
washed repeatedly and checked with litmus paper that it was about ph7 then rubbed off the remaining mask where possible.
it is now in AP ( CuCl2 ) and has been for nearly 2 days, earlier today I looked and had a nice gold snow globe effect when I agitated it, little flakes of loose gold are showing :lol:
this is a tiny batch using about 400ml of the leach.
will get the bubbler connected up tomorrow for a short time and see how much gold is still attached.
I have enough fingers and boards to do several more lots like this, would rather do several small batches and make less waste than one big one.
I also have a varied selection of CPUs, the ones with soldered on legs I will put in HCL with some future boards to remove the solder, the other ones with gold plating I may use this leach on if people here think it a good idea.
I will start to read up here on celerons, 686's, athalons and P4's to see what is recommended before doing anything with them and the same with the pins I have collected.
the fingers and boards will keep me busy for a while yet whilst I read more

 

[the iron dwarf]

a little stir and this is what I have, some foils and some solder mask.
put it on a warm hot plate today for a while and put in a bubbler pipe, will see what it is like in the morning, will try to leave bubbler on for a while tomorrow if I think it needs it.
after the picture was taken a tiny amount of foils which I removed from the beaker by filtering the solution, then returned the solution to the beaker and put the basket back in as most of the gold is still there.
I have the boards and fingers packed in much too tight in the basket so there is little room to move them so I expect it to take a long time.
I am in no hurry so will work on this tiny scale, the basket is a food storage container that holds 400ml, the beaker is 750ml and I have enough fingers and boards to fill the basket solid another 3 times but I will probably do it in 5 or 6 smaller batches.
is there an easy way to separate the solder mask from the foils?

edited mm to ml

 

[Geo]

Looks like too much stirring has broken the foils into little pieces. That's not really a problem but just an observation. The solution is not as green as I would like mine to be. You are using a minimalist way of going at it. Maybe add some more HCl to the solution.

 

[jason_recliner]

is there an easy way to separate the solder mask from the foils?

Having not tried that myself, I would think incineration and washing should pretty much get rid of it.
Either way, solder mask is not to my mind at all soluble in HCl/Cl or AR. So you can filter anything left after you dissolve your clean foils.

 

[the iron dwarf]

thank you jason, that was my thoughts but thought it wise to ask in case others had a better way.

still collecting and will do until I have enough to be worthwhile going further