goldpete,
Do not give up, as you said you’re no quitter, but I would stand back and take another look at the big picture, you are trying to recover and refine gold, you have just begun and are not quite sure of how to do it, you keep running into problems and have to ask for help, this may get you out of one bind but you can barely catch your breath before you run into another problem, it all sounds so simple, surely all you do is mix a couple of chemicals and wind up melting pure gold bars, why are you having troubles?
I agree with patnor, do not quit before you even start, you have jumped into the middle, If I were you I would go back to the starting point, reading Hoke's Book, get your chemicals out and work on the getting acquainted experiments, get a good grasp of the basic principles, then also carry this type of experimentation on into what you learn from Laser Steve's website (and the forum), the processes he shows there, experiment with small batches of known processes and use clean high grade scrap and your chemicals, following each procedure step by step (do not experiment on changing the process, but experiment using the exact process, keeping other variables out of your materials or your reactions, so that when it works and you get a good grasp on the process you can use that process in recovery or refining, you will know what worked and have a better idea if something is different why it will not work and what steps you need to take to make it work, working with clean memory foils is a good place to learn the basics of the copper chloride leach and dissolving and precipitating gold, the material is relatively free from other metals that can give you trouble, and following what you learn from laser Steve's information he provides, you can get a good understanding of the principles, with studying Hoke's you also learn how to deal with other metals or reactions when you run into them later, work on one process before going to another, understand it well, this process after you learn it can also help you to understand another process you may study later, work like a scientist keep notes, work with a clean lab, learn the reaction working with experiments on small batches, and known materials with a fairly good idea of what to expect and why, spend time studying.
Do quit going the wrong way trying to recover and refine before you even learn (do not try and fly that airplane until you get some flying lessons, and asking help "how do I fly this thing" after you already took off from the ground is not going to help you make a smooth crash landing).
Do not give up, but start back at the beginning and do it right this time (you have learned more than you know up to this point, you have learned that it is not as easy as you thought, you are also beginning to see how much there is to this and that you need more understanding, take this knowledge back to the starting line, get some flying lessons in, and I bet we shall see you soar like an eagle when you are ready to fly.
