help needed overzealous witches brew

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Joined
Apr 27, 2011
Messages
15
Okay'
Ill be the first to admit I did just about everything wrong in this situation. I will be taking pictures shortly as Im gathering everything up to take to a friends house with some excerpts from this forum. He has a little better attention span than me so Im going to use his brilliance to bolster my chaotic intelligence.


Let me first describe the process. I had started with the idea of inquartation with gold filled scrap; this consisted about 50/50 gold filled watch bands and gold filled necklaces and misc jewelery.
I had started the process, but for the apartment i live in the nitric fumes just werent going to work. So i tossed the pyrex cake pan in the fridge to contain and slow the reaction.
After that all h*** let loose in my life and for about 6 months this pan just sat in the bottom of a refrigerator and continued its reaction; albiet much slowed down. I pulled it out the other day and it was this jello of green nitric, with these growths of gold crystals in it. I heated it up and ended up with a picture perfect mixture. Had I waited till my computer was back up again (o.s. crashed) and done my research; chances are I would be now selling some good gold. But; no instead i got overzealous and threw the rest of my scrap (military surplus laser parts very heavy gold plate. Some mystery metals though and; of course solder :( ), and not nearly enough hcl.
Long story short I ended up with this concoction that formed 3 layers the liquid on top; this liquid when evaporated leaves a gold colored salt. The silver sludge in the middle; which when evaporated leaves all kinds of different types of salts (when i post the pictures youll see.), and last but not least the solids at the bottom containing alot of gold foils along with a brown sludge of Im assuming base metals.

After reading the forum for the past couple days off and on I decided to pour and filter the liquid; see if I could precipitate any gold from it, and see what came out of evaporating the liquid.(after using urea to neutralize the acids) I used sodium bisulfate as its easily acquired. The greyish-silver sludge pretty much dominated the procedure; that coupled with the amount of solids left over convinced me that my best next move would be to evaporate all the liquid (after a relatively pre-cursory filtering), and start over from step one. That is; of course after taking the salt that was left after evaporation and washing it thoroughly so Im starting with clean chlorides and not mixing the old witches brew back into the new process.

I am limited on resources; but have sodium nitrate, i believe enough to do a poor mans ar with the solids i have left over. Chances are that there will be a mostly copper-gold mix; but there will be silver and some small amount of tin. Though Im going to wait on the feedback here before taking any steps other than getting the basic preparations done. I could just as easily make a cold recipe nitric acid and start from there.

I will have questions; but Im guessing at this point some pics would be helpful for reference.

That being said Ill start with say 3 simple questions that will be for clarification and viewpoints on what I have already read. Sorry if I am asking for repeats; its how I learn; its how I train also i.e.: theres no such thing as a stupid question; except the one you didnt ask.

First: If I use a 50/50 nitric solution along with heat it will reduce the solids fairly well yes? Can i use the left over liquid after filtering for making ar?
Second: I havent found a real solid answer for this though theres been some mention of the process. Theres alot of technical jargon involved that completely demolishes my ability to fully absorb the information (adhd when I go to look up the chemical terms reactions and formulas I sooner or later get lost and distracted) so Ill ask outright:

In laymens terms what is the reaction of nitric with base metals?
What Im getting from what ive read is the copper and silver breaks down and suspends in the acids' but very little gold.
That being said my guess is that I would have to clean the nitric of the base metals in order to use it again yes? What would be the most economical way to do it, involving the least hazardous process?

Third:After evaporation I ended up with all these different mixtures of metal salts; Each different batch I have kept separate (pics soon). Im thinking of using a peroxide-bleach or peroxide hcl method of pulling whatever gold is in this stuff.
Question is: Does anybody have a better idea?

Mostly just looking for a bit of feedback on the situation before i start; yes I totally blew it the first time; but I learned what not to do which is after all part of the learning process.
Now Im thinking that learning what to do would be a good place to start :)

Oh and last but not least: melting :
1: is borax the best flux to use?
2: does it turn the copper into glass?
3: I have a little tiny torch that uses either map or propane; but the oxygen bottles are 8$ a pop and last 15 minutes if im lucky. Any ideas that are more economical?
4: Ive been looking at the microwave refining idea anyone have experience with this? Anyone happen to know a way to make one for less than the 200 of buying the kit? Or would the prudent action be to shell out the 2 hun and roll from there. At 8$ for 15 minutes itd pay for itself fairly quick.

Thanks to all who read this and specially those that leave feedback sorry if it seems a waste of time; trust me its not even if it seems I already know the answer.
 
the apartment i live in the nitric fumes just werent going to work. So i tossed the pyrex cake pan in the fridge to contain and slow the reaction
:shock: :shock:


did you do this inside your house?
did you put the reaction dish inside a fridge that you use?
did you eat or drink anything from that fridge?
 
I think you picked a fitting screen name.

infinatesorrow

You put these poisons in your fridge where you and your family eat from?

You don't take this serious enough.

Best idea, find another hobby.
 
I really really hope you did not have this in your food fridge....You may have poisoned your self in many ways. heavy metal poisoning is very bad. Slow and insidious. Get a blood test for metals. Seriously.
 
qst42know said:
Best idea, find another hobby.
Highly recommended! One of our members was recently hurt badly enough to be hospitallized,and that was just from getting a little whiff of something.Please sell your material,it's not worth losing your life,or worse losing the life of a loved one,over it.
 
Here is my suggestion, stop before you kill yourself or others.
You do not know anything of what your doing or why, and if anybody here would tell you what to do with the mess you have created, and you continue (they would only be helping you to continue to make more mistakes).

Take the solution you have now, add a copper bar into solution, let it sit with loose fitting lid, in safe location outdoors, away from children or animals, away from any metals as even being close to this solution can be destroyed.

After three days. Slowly pour liquid to another container, HDPE bottle with lid Ok, mark container spent nitric solution, wash off copper buss bar with old tooth brush, and water into powders, rinse bar and brush into powders let sit overnight, next day pour off water into spent nitric bottle, put powders in clean jar with lid, and mark jar, possible values nitric treated.

Forget about using any chemicals for now.

Read treating waste until you understand it.

Read the safety section, search any chemical you plan to use later, get MSDS and research the safety of using it.

Read Hoke’s book one time, make notes, after you have read the whole book go back to page one and start reading Hoke’s book again, this time do the getting acquainted experiments, as you come to them.

Continue reading the forum, but do not be tempted to start process until after you have completed and understand everything above.

Then maybe start with memory fingers and acid peroxide process and work your way up from there.

I feel if you follow this advice you can become successful, if you do not or skip any instructions above you will continue to loose values and put yourself and others in danger, if you think you can just jump in and do this or get help from your buddy your wrong and will just make it harder on yourself.

This is not some simple thing you can just learn in a few months and do safely and with success, this will take an awful lot of hard work and study, if that is not what your committed to do, then just forget about recovery and refining, find some other interesting thing to mess with.

If you are dedicated and do your home work you may become successful, with much work.

Please take this advise seriously, if this forum and trade is what you wish to learn we can help, but non of us here want to help you hurt yourself or others (without studying is what you would be doing).
 
I think if Infinatesorrow wants some gold he should buy a metal detector and go to the beach. He may not kill himself or others doing that.

Jim
 
Very well said butcher 8)

infinatesorrow please listen to what butcher said
he is one of the many wize men on this forum..... grasshopper :mrgreen:
 
infinatesorrow said:
Let me first describe the process. I had started with the idea of inquartation with gold filled scrap; this consisted about 50/50 gold filled watch bands and gold filled necklaces and misc jewelery.
I had started the process, but for the apartment i live in the nitric fumes just werent going to work. So i tossed the pyrex cake pan in the fridge to contain and slow the reaction.
After that all h*** let loose in my life and for about 6 months this pan just sat in the bottom of a refrigerator and continued its reaction; albiet much slowed down. I pulled it out the other day and it was this jello of green nitric, with these growths of gold crystals in it. I heated it up and ended up with a picture perfect mixture. Had I waited till my computer was back up again (o.s. crashed) and done my research; chances are I would be now selling some good gold. But; no instead i got overzealous and threw the rest of my scrap (military surplus laser parts very heavy gold plate. Some mystery metals though and; of course solder :( ), and not nearly enough hcl.

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:
:shock: :shock: I'd be tempted to say he's trolling here. :shock: :shock:
:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

Edited to add more shocked smileys.
 
The two main ingredients in our obsession/profession that are an absolute must are patience and sacrifice. You have to sacrifice some of your money to buy things like nitric acid and you must have the patience to wait for a reaction's completion.
I warn you as well like the others have warned you, You need to stop this madness before you destroy yourself and those around you. Those short cuts could lead you to a hospital or to a morgue. :cry: Dr. Poe
 
goldenchild said:
:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:
:shock: :shock: I'd be tempted to say he's trolling here. :shock: :shock:
:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

Edited to add more shocked smileys.
Sure you added enough? :lol:

If he's trolling, I'd be surprised, for he's been here for a while, and has looked at the board today. You'd think that, by now, he'd know better. If he is, he's making a mistake, as you likely know. I don't tolerate much of that activity. If he remains silent, that will be a pretty good indicator that's what he's doing.

Harold
 
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