First timer here with my AP results so far.

[goldfinger3]

Hey guys I have been beating around the forums for about 6 months now going back and forth and buying small amount of equipment here and there and finally decided to do my first experiment. These are my results so far, feel free to give feedback I am all for learning. The solutions is 2 parts HCI 1 part H2O2, I have only ran 10 boards threw this as I wanted to make a very first small trial run. I also run a air bubbler to help the process.

My only major concern is maybe getting to ahead of my self and not depopulating the boards all the way, and now I have some junk in my mixture.

What is the best way to get the junk out of my mix but still keep any gold flakes that may be floating around.

 

[nickvc]

I think you may have been a little heavy handed with the H202 and may well have dissolved your gold, a stannous test will tell you this. As for the junk don't worry just filter any powders in the bottom, if any and incinerate the whole lot junk included then your good to go. If there is gold in your solution simply keep adding more scrap until the gold cements back out and you have floating foils visible.

 

[goldfinger3]

I think you may have been a little heavy handed with the H202 and may well have dissolved your gold, a stannous test will tell you this. As for the junk don't worry just filter any powders in the bottom, if any and incinerate the whole lot junk included then your good to go. If there is gold in your solution simply keep adding more scrap until the gold cements back out and you have floating foils visible.

Yea I have not seen any major gold flakes yet so I do believe I dissolved some if not all of it lol, however I am going to buy some materials to make my stannous today and I will test for sure at least if it is dissolved it makes for easy filtering. I am also going to start a stock tank to keep left over chemical for later precipitation. Going forward I do plan on cleaning up my material a lot better as I see how important it is.

 

[nickvc]

Well I wouldn't worry too much about the bits of junk when you filter simply use some plastic tweezers to pick out the junk off the filter if you don't want to incinerate, wash them down first and put the labels in a separate container with anything else that might need incineration at a later date like your old filters and any wipes.
As I said if you have dissolved the gold simply keep add more material until you see foils floating.
If you do get a positive for gold when you test keep a small amount of your solution for making sure your stannous is still working in the future.

 

[artart47]

Hi Goldfinger!
One thing to keep in mind. There is very little gold on these boards and you will have to do a very large number of them to have enough gold to be seen. The plating is extremely thin. for your first experiment if you run some gold fingers in with it, they will drastically increase the amount of gold you will be working with.
I remember when I first started learning I ran a couple 5gal. buckets of phone boards and dealt with like a tenth of a gram of gold mixed with a lot of debris.
Hope this helps!
artart47

 

[goldfinger3]

Hi Goldfinger!
One thing to keep in mind. There is very little gold on these boards and you will have to do a very large number of them to have enough gold to be seen. The plating is extremely thin. for your first experiment if you run some gold fingers in with it, they will drastically increase the amount of gold you will be working with.
I remember when I first started learning I ran a couple 5gal. buckets of phone boards and dealt with like a tenth of a gram of gold mixed with a lot of debris.
Hope this helps!
artart47

Yes I am aware of the small amount that is on their however I have a constant supply of these boards and a back stock of about 3000. I am just running this small patch so see the process first hand and to learn what to do and not to do later on.

 

[Anonymous]

The gold on these doesn't come off in flakes. It comes off as fine powder.

 

[goldfinger3]

The gold on these doesn't come off in flakes. It comes off as fine powder.

Do you think because of this it will be more likely to dissolve? I filtered the solution last not and all I was left with was what looks like a lot of copper flakes. Not sure why they did not dissolve as my solution is the correct color or light green that shows me it is still in good shape to dissolve copper, but I may return the filtered contents to a smaller vessel and try to react it again and dissolve the copper out. I will post a picture of the filter once I am home.

 

[nickvc]

If the gold isn't visible then what you see is your gold in the copper looking flakes, just add more product and see what happens.. Don't panic your gold is safe.
Have you made your stannous yet?
If not why not?
It's your eyes when gold or values are in solution!

 

[resabed01]

I just cringe every time I see pictures posted from a somebody using acids and they appear to be taken indoors. :shock:

 

[jason_recliner]

If there is gold in your solution simply keep adding more scrap until the gold cements back out and you have floating foils visible.

A clarification, to avoid potential confusion as it might be read: Nick was correct here, but he is talking about two separate things.
- Gold will cement out of solution as fine black/brown powder.
- Floating foils are any that have not yet dissolved by your excessive use of H2O2.
You could have either or both. Gold will not (at least not in AP) cement out of solution as shiny, visible flakes.

 

[goldfinger3]

I just cringe every time I see pictures posted from a somebody using acids and they appear to be taken indoors. :shock:

I am sorry it looks bad, however it stays outside until i bring it in for pictures and better lighting.

 

[Anonymous]

I just cringe every time I see pictures posted from a somebody using acids and they appear to be taken indoors. :shock:

I look at people who do things outside and cringe! 8)

 

[goldfinger3]

I just cringe every time I see pictures posted from a somebody using acids and they appear to be taken indoors. :shock:

I look at people who do things outside and cringe! 8)

Hey I'm a work in progress, me and my wife will be moving into our new house as of the 24th so I will be building a vent good and 3 stage filter before I continue processing. This was my trial run to make sure what I have learned so far is valid, I appreciate all the feed back for everyone.

 

[goldfinger3]

****UPDATE****

 

[jason_recliner]

I look at people who put brightly coloured, deadly chemicals into a drinking glass, and cringe!

That is absolutely laying out the welcome mat for Trouble, and with a sign saying "We're open. Free beer." Dedicate some suitable jars if you have to, and label them well. Much better is to buy yourself some beakers. They're pretty cheap.

Never use that glass for drinking again. Break it when you throw it out, to be sure it is never reclaimed.

Also, ahem, GLOVES!

 

[Grelko]

I look at people who put brightly coloured, deadly chemicals into a drinking glass, and cringe!

That is absolutely laying out the welcome mat for Trouble, and with a sign saying "We're open. Free beer."

It's like St. Patrick's Day gone mad. :twisted: But seriously, please don't use drinking glasses, I keep some of my solutions in mason jars and it works fine. (Make sure to get the plastic lid, the metal ones will rust and eventually drop pieces into the solutions.)

 

[eaglewings35]

Hey Goldfinger3, things are looking pretty good !!
Dont worry about the other particles. Your next step is going to be to dissolve the gold foils/powder.
After the dissolution, you will run what remains (trash) through a filter, getting rid of all the trash.
Then your drop with SMB will be trash free.