getting started in refining

Shop deals on ebay
xelexo
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
A

Anonymous

Guest
I want to get a hands on educaton about gold and silver refining and learn something about the businss. I am
considering wheter to get into it or not. I have reasonable funds and credit and business experience. I know
this sounds very pedestrian, but that is what I am. Where would you start. My objective is to buy gold and
silver and refine it myself. I live in the northern California area. Is there a school or apprenticeship that might
be available?

signed
Goldtooth
 
Well where to start,do you have any knowledge or experience with gold and silver in any way? Can you tell whether its plated or filled or 14 k or 18 k? Do you have a chemistry background or have you worked in a refinery? Sorry to sound negative but if the answer to any of those questions is no you either have a lot to learn or find an easier way to earn a living.If you wish to learn about refining start with C.M.Hokes book which is available as a free download here on the forum as is the forum handbook,start with those and you will get a good understanding of the refining part of your plans,as to where you are going to source your materials to refine and in what form is the next hurdle and thats your real problem if you have no experience in precious metals its easy to buy at inflated prices and to buy material with no hope of a profit so again do your homework. I do wish you luck but as i have said before there is no Eldorado here on the forum but you will learn one hell of a lot on here that even 10 years ago was treated like state secrets.
 
Just as a point of reference I recently set up a guy in Westchester NY who wanted to do the same thing, he is a jeweler with a store and he wanted to refine. I set him up with a PVC hood a good exhaust, a fume scrubber and all associated ducting which set him back $18,500, he was handy and did the installation with friends to save on install costs. His goal was to refine 50 ounces per lot and he purchased a sealed glass reactor with heat and condensers for about $2,000 and a vacuum system, filter jugs and buchner funnels set him back another $2,500. Now he has everything to refine, he had a gas melter and hood existing in the place.

It took me 3 days to design the scrubber and associated pumps and blowers and when he was set up I worked with him for 10 days to teach him everything soup to nuts. He caught on quickly. So with my fees, ($1000 a day) he spent $36,000. He didn't want to cheap out and he has nice equipment which will serve him well for a long time and is sized to process more than he is currently processing.

Oh, the city of New York got there fingers in there and between a PE and permit fees, add another $4.000.

He is totally EPA compliant, and holds and hauls his waste.

That was done in the fall of last year. He is currently processing 2 lots a day of scrap a day and his costs (less labor, that is his time) are $2.50 per ounce in, including waste removal. He recovers gold and his bars assay .9995+ and he is recovering his silver as well. He is buying at 70% of value and with the numbers he's doing he is up a cool $18,000 a day. Not a bad ROI.

The only project I've ever done west of the Mississippi was for a guy doing a lot of silver (big operation) so don't think this is a sales pitch, just some figures to work with.
 
I may be missing something, but what is the point to refine yourself when you get paid the same amount by the larger refineries ?

The only option I see is if he sold his 24k shots to other jewellers...
 
Noxx,

I can only speak for myself, but I understand your logic if one were to focus on only yellow gold karat scrap.

Having said that the large refineries do not give credit for other metals as it is being sold as gold, silver or PGM found in gold jewelry is treated as waste metals as far as pay-out unless you are dealing in kilo sized lots. I have found that the silver I recover from karat gold covers my chemical costs and there is the added benefit of removing the gray area GSP talks about when you send in nice buttons with piping instead of raw jewelry that they can claim was plated or gold fill. In addition to that I get a fair amount of platinum from findings and the occasional rhodium plating all at gold spot price.

If someone does not wish to invest the time in learning to refine they can of course still make money buying and selling as a gold dealer. If however you invest in your education there are scrap sources beyond jewelry scrap that many refineries will reject that you can profit from if you know how to refine. If you were to try buying and having traditional refineries that are willing to run non-jewelry scrap you would be robbed blind (the gray area is greater here than in karat scrap) unless you had very large quantities and again invested in your education to be properly able to witness your material start to finish through the refining (4metals has given excellent insights and advice in this area).

At the end of the day just like any business you must decide where you should invest your time and capital in order to get the greatest return on investment given your circumstances and goals. For myself I have found that investing in education has provided opportunities that otherwise would not have existed YMMV. A wonderful definition of luck in the business world is when preparedness meets opportunity.

PS; I like your signature line
 
4metals said:
Just as a point of reference I recently set up a guy in Westchester NY who wanted to do the same thing, he is a jeweler with a store and he wanted to refine. I set him up with a PVC hood a good exhaust, a fume scrubber and all associated ducting which set him back $18,500, he was handy and did the installation with friends to save on install costs. His goal was to refine 50 ounces per lot and he purchased a sealed glass reactor with heat and condensers for about $2,000 and a vacuum system, filter jugs and buchner funnels set him back another $2,500. Now he has everything to refine, he had a gas melter and hood existing in the place.

It took me 3 days to design the scrubber and associated pumps and blowers and when he was set up I worked with him for 10 days to teach him everything soup to nuts. He caught on quickly. So with my fees, ($1000 a day) he spent $36,000. He didn't want to cheap out and he has nice equipment which will serve him well for a long time and is sized to process more than he is currently processing.

Oh, the city of New York got there fingers in there and between a PE and permit fees, add another $4.000.

He is totally EPA compliant, and holds and hauls his waste.

That was done in the fall of last year. He is currently processing 2 lots a day of scrap a day and his costs (less labor, that is his time) are $2.50 per ounce in, including waste removal. He recovers gold and his bars assay .9995+ and he is recovering his silver as well. He is buying at 70% of value and with the numbers he's doing he is up a cool $18,000 a day. Not a bad ROI.

The only project I've ever done west of the Mississippi was for a guy doing a lot of silver (big operation) so don't think this is a sales pitch, just some figures to work with.
Click to expand...
This isnt an attack on you 4metals as im sure you did what was asked for and more,but if he is buying at 70% of fix he could still turn a good profit by melting assaying and selling on at say 98% of fix to another refiner,his profit in real terms is the 2% if he can get spot for his fine Au less his costs, time and investment,the bonus is perhaps the other metals in the mix such as silver, rhodium and palladium if he recovers them.The only way i can see this been a good investment is if he really ups the quantities he refines and then the volume will produce much more income for very little extra costs or labour.
 
You are correct with your numbers, this guy turns all of his metal into 22 karat which he sells overseas. He always had gone to small refiners who paid him in cash and he was getting screwed and, while I didn't ask, I assume he is keeping his production on a need to know basis.

By the way if you are charged 2%, and you are not paid for silver (most small lots aren't) and you generate 100 oz a week, your refiner will be charging you $60,000 a year. (assuming there is no gray area, imagine that!) So it still pays for itself in 8 months.

I assume this guy is refining for other jewelers and selling them back their fine gold since he said he does 2 lots a day all week so if you factor that in the 60K in the paragraph above becomes 300K plus the charges he gets for selling them back fine gold.

With gold at $1150+ refining for yourself does pay if you can get the gold in, and it pays to set up right.
 
Ahha!

I had my share of fun when refining with DBC. Since school's keeping me very busy, I can't refine anymore. But it would be a lie to tell you that it does not miss me. Fortunately enough, I will do a 3 week training course next week in a plating business. I'm sure that's gonna be fun!

On the other hand, I'm building a propane furnace right now to melt karat gold. I'm trying to get rid of that darn "gray area".

I like what I am doing right now; buying and selling. Fairly easy and I buy @ 87% spot. I only got a few clients but that's because I don't really advertise.

I plan to buy @ 80% spot from the public this summer.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top