Scheele35
Here let me help you nobody here will belittle you, the answer's they give will be very useful if you take the advice, the reason they have experience is because the learned. And they are trying to help you learn.
Yes there are many processes and sometimes different ways someone may handle a process, yes the posts are usually not just a book on how to refine or a step by step process of a whole process. as we get a lot of new people wanting to learn and asking really silly questions, there also is so much to this the post would be as big as a book, and also non of us I know of make our living writing books so we do not normally do that.
Your in luck we know someone who will (HOKE's ) she wrote a book for you, explains every detail step by step, she even walks you through some very important experiments, and explains testing. it is a proven fact that someone can become a professional refiner from reading that book (he is a moderator on the forum) and I am sure his advice to teach you to refine would be (read the book).
Here is the best advice I can give, cement all solutions you now have on copper (I do not even know what you have, or care what you have done or learned up till this point), save all powders neutralize them with caustic soda (sodium hydroxide), rinse boiling hot water letting settle while still warm to hot, decant dry powders and store, add iron to your solution and cement copper, decant powders, then add hydroxide to solution to bring PH to about 9 this will form a salt water solution that you can dispose of safely.
forget anything to do with recovery or refining, read Hokes, follow her instructions and experiments, practice making small amounts of solutions to test, run into a problem you do not understand come to the forum and ask one of these fine gentlemen for help, do not take their answer as an insult, consider they have been there and very likely know what they are talking about, and if they do not someone else here will darn sure let them know and set you on the right path, we are only here to learn ourselves and to help others to learn in the mean time, some here no longer refine but spend countless of hours answering the same old stupid questions over and over and over, this takes away from the forum as a whole as it slows all meaningful discussions answering the same ole bull, and wears out those who could help us the most, even to the point that they wonder if spending their time on the forum is worth it to them all they are doing is trying to help people who many just slap them in the face and say they know better they just want a simple answer tell me where my gold is why should I read a stupid book just tell me a simple answer how to refine and make it simple I do not have much time and want to know in ten sentences or less, hurry dag nab it I already dissolved my gold or what i thought was gold and this bank teller here is expecting me to hand her the money from my refined gold (which I do not know if is in solution or powders or if I flushed it, do I just pee on it to neutralize it ).
To learn to fly it takes some study and practice, but putting yourself in the pilot seat with neither is foolish,.
This post I made is not to belittle you on the contrary my intent is to help you understand, there is a lot to learning this, it is confusing when you first start, but like anything of this nature you have to be willing to do your homework and it will always be challenging so do not give up when things get tough.