First time refining - 96% of my theoretical yield

[evanJ]

I just melted down my powder and got a final yield of 27.6 grams, only a bit shy of my theoretical yield of 28.8.
This was also karat gold and a lot of it was antique so the numbers could have been inflated. I know I lost a little gold in my filters when I burned them down, and I suspect I lost some more that was just ultra fine and suspended in my AR after SMB... but I honestly got a much better yield than I hoped for.

Thanks to all of you for sharing resources and answering questions and all! Any time I hit a hiccup in my process I found someone here answering it... and the few times I couldn't find an answer and asked, someone quickly jumped in to help. You guys are pretty cool

The button came out a bit wobbly but I didn't bother reshaping it because I'll be mixing it down to about 18k for a jewelry project. Now to recover all my silver chloride....

 

[4metals]

Well done, the truth is the smaller the lot size the harder it is to get up to theoretical expectations. On small lots all of those small particles lost to chloride entrapment or filtration make up a larger percentage of tiny refines.

Then there's the fact that a karat stamp is typically lower than what it is stamped, and it is legal. I hear they cannot get away with that in the UK, but here the law gives the manufacturers a little wiggle room. And miraculously they always wiggle lower!

 

[allen01 pgm big tx]

You'll have to forgive me but I do things a little differently and I've never seen in person. Anyone do any of this except for me. So what do I got? I started with lead. Can anyone help?

 

[4metals]

Looks like a pile of unspecified (insert any expletive here). Maybe some time spent describing what you started with and what you did will help you get better answers.

 

[Yggdrasil]

You'll have to forgive me but I do things a little differently and I've never seen in person. Anyone do any of this except for me. So what do I got? I started with lead. Can anyone help?

As 4metals say, it do not look like anything specific other than a melted blob of Lead dropped on the ground or something similar.
So please explain more in detail as we really are very poor at reading minds.