Wknox11473,
You can try to learn that way, but by doing so I do not think it would be very profitable, and I do not think you would learn very much at all, I suppose it would be more profitable to send your material to a refiner and collect the cash, the reason I say this is there are a lot of small details in recovery and refining, it is not just learn a recipe and bake a cake, each situation is somewhat different, also it takes time to learn, especially if your just starting out, Imagine paying me a wage for years to learn what I have learned and what I am still learning, believe me the refiner would give you the better deal.
You can learn it for free, here on the forum, it takes work as anything worthwhile does, in reality recovery and refining is simple, but learning it is not, this is like learning to be a chemist, nobody can just show you how, it takes study and hard work. You will be working with some dangerous chemicals, deadly fumes, and there is the possibility of making explosive mixture's if you do not understand what you’re doing, there can also sometimes be choices or decisions to make while processing, here is where your study and learning experience pays off, not every situation will be the same.
If you do decide to learn (and not pay a full time refiner to show you a couple of tricks, or pay a refiner to process your materials for cash) the first place to begin is by reading C.M. Hokes book, do the getting acquainted experiments she teaches, pay close attention to the results (there is a wealth of knowledge in these simple experiments, if you understand them they can help you decide how to deal with many of the problems in recovery and refining), also as you read the book sit back and look at the overall picture she is drawing in her book (things that someone reading the words can easily miss, like separating scrap, pretreatments, incineration, removing base metals before putting values in solutions dealing with different metals or combinations of metals, testing solutions for values, stock pot, and details, this book is well written, easy to understand and has a gold mine of information, Harold one of the forum's founding fathers learned to recover and refine successfully with only this book, and learned to become one of the authority's on this subject, you are lucky if you do not understand the book the forum will help.
Also your study must include dealing with waste, and using the chemicals and keeping yourself and others safe, we have a very nice safety section, and I also use the search on the intranet library for anything I do,
The general reaction list and welcome to new members will also get you headed in the right direction, the members also link to important web sites, video's and other information in their signature lines, these have a wealth of information, the forum also has years of documented instructions, troubleshooting and other information right at your finger tips.
It is all here free all you have to do is sit back and pick it up, run into a problem one of these fine members will help to get you back on track, or try to help you understand the problem and find the fix.
I do not think the knowledge in recovering and refining can be given to anyone, this is a skill that is earned through hard work.
Read Hoke's book, free download in book section until you decide to own your own book.
