Onfireassay,
Make no mistake about it this hobby is extremely dangerous, we deal with many reactions that are dangerous to breath, substances that can be very poisonous, and dangerous to our environment, not to mention the surrounding area you work in with the very corrosive acids and fumes, in chemistry there are risks of explosive substances being made, with the metals and chemicals we deal with this is all possible.
This could be something you and your son could work on together, and give you a chance to teach him responsibility and safety, young people tend to believe they are invincible and may try stupid things, especially if uneducated in the dangers involved.
They also tend to be impulsive, and many times have a short attention span, especially if it comes to study. With this Hobby you can help to make the research fun, and help him to learn to research for a wanted goal, which can be a very valuable tool for him throughout his life.
You will need a place to work safely. A Lab, this could be nothing more than a table outside, or a shed with a fume hood, it can be simple or as fancy as you wish, but it needs to be safe, and have an area to work to avoid the fumes, and avoid spilling or contaminating the area, have a place to store dangerous acids, and solutions you tend to leave.
There are many projects you can work on, like building a fume hood or many of the tools you will need, learning the chemistry and how to make many of the chemicals you need, learn the reactions of metals and acids, and how to test for metals in solutions when you can no longer see the metal or the metal is no longer a metal but an ionic salt of that metal.
Spend time learning to deal with waste, this may be one of the more important lessons, as when the EPA, DEQ. or some other government agency or authority comes to your home to inspect your lab, and what your up to you can show them you are working responsibly and know what your doing and that you are doing it safely for yourself, your son, and others around you and even those far from you.
You and your son have a lot to learn, Hoke's book of coarse is where to begin, and working with the experiment's there.
Simple items to begin with like memory fingers, then working up from there to harder materials, studying each process of recovery then refining...
working with simpler items will give you experience with less troublesome materials, making learning the processes easier seeing and learning the reactions from them.
Probably one of the neatest experiments you can work on with your son would be with silver, It can be fascinating to see a clear solution of silver nitrate, that looks like water, add a bar of copper to see the solution turn blue and cement a gray silver powder from solution that can be washed and melted to a button of silver.
Or have a clear solution of AgNO3 and add some table salt to another vessel of water, both clear solutions of dissolved metals one of sodium metal as an ion of sodium chloride, the other clear solution of silver metal as an ionic silver nitrate, mixing the two clear solutions becomes milky white and then a cottage cheese of silver chloride settles, after a few more chemical processes to convert the silver chloride to metal then you melt it to silver...
You can get an education yourself, and enjoy helping your son with his education, it is my belief with the forum, and its resources, you can gain an education that not many college's could teach you, that is if there was any college that can teach a practical science or skill like this, and not just some theory about some of the things we do.
Keep on top of your list safety and education, the precious metals will come in due time, and you and your son will know what to do with them...
Oh yes having fun safely, and responsibly will also be a big part of that.
