fresh on the scene

[Anonymous]

Greetings folks,

I am a self taught artist-stone carver/pm worker-not a jeweler, but I make the stuff. I get a fair bit of scrap gold in my line of work and when I decided to do jewelry ( I seriously did not see that learning curve coming :shock: ) I bought fella's tools who had passed away. I got alot of stuff I didn't know what it was for, chemicals specifically, like HCl acid, sulfuric acid, mercury-1 lb of it! a fridge compressor hooked up to a battery charger....I stored the chemicals in a closed cool cabinet since I've them- about 2 years now and have just got the bug to refine some of the material I have. I don't anticipate this being a full on refining job but when I make stuff I like to work with pure materials-18k+gold especially and like to do things my self but don't want to die or get sick in the process. Are the chemicals any good still? for basic small amounts of gold (2-5 oz) what would I need to begin refining my own metal. I'm like so not informed on this subject (but now that I'm here I will read everything on the list, this is the only aspect of what I do that I have out-sourced and if I can do this I can bypass the refining fee's and keep everything in house but my scrap pile is building up. As it stands I buy gold coins from banks alloy them myself make my own sheet/wire and do my own casting so I have... a few tools.... and a good torch set up. Any direction would be appreciated. thanks for reading

James

 

[lazersteve]

For help with reactions, safety, and abbreviations follow the Guided Tour Link below.

Hoke's book (link in Palladium's signature line) will give you the layman's view of refining.

Search the forum for the particular type of scrap you are going to refine.

Do your home work and study before you try any reactions. Start small and get familar with the reactions and testing.

Welcome to the forum.

Steve

 

[dtectr]

James
Welcome! Since this form is devoted mainly, but not entirely to e-scrap, you may have to dig some. Fortunately, the Sacred Text for this site
is Hoke's "Refining Precious Metal Wastes", which is available for free from several members' signature lines.
Also, a couple of our moderators come from jewelry scrap refining backgrounds, so their advice will be invaluable.
Further, may I reccomend the book, "The Jeweler's Bench Reference" by Harold O'Connor, if it is still in print. I've had mine for over 25 years.
Good luck!

 

[Anonymous]

Hey! thanks guys, one thing I do know how to do is research and after reading a few posts I can see this is like looking for the perfect Rock! you're gonna work son! Ok I'm on it and I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks again

James

 

[nickvc]

The sort of materials that your going to need to refine are all fairly simple bar the polishings buff papers and general workshop sweeps. Your bench sweeps or lemel is probably the easiest but is easy to produce sub standard gold from but Harold has given some excellent insights into how to handle these as has C.M.Hoke. The beauty of lemel is it's small particle size which makes dissolution easy, follow the set process and it should be a piece of cake and give you a good feel for the other materials. The solid scraps are going to probably need to be inquarted , again explained in Hoke, and plenty of posts on that process on the forum. The polishings etc are a bit more tricky but again explained in Hoke and again with some good insights from Harold.
Your main concern should be your and others health and safety, the chemicals we use are all dangerous but with care and knowledge can be used to refine on a hobby basis without too much risk, you don't have to be a scientist but you do need to understand what your doing and any reactions that might occur.
This can be and is fun and can be very addictive. Welcome to the best place to learn how to refine precious metals safely and properly.