shadow57, welcome to the forum, I would like to help you with getting gold, and this is the best advice I can give you at this point, please seriously consider it.
What to do with what you have up to this point, well the good news is you have it dried, at least you can put it in a glass jar and label it, calling it your first big mistake, which you can come back to later, after you spend a lot more time reading and learning to do it right.
Do not worry about processing anything at this point, (you will just lose your values, if you try to), spend time collecting scrap, and studying, start with Hokes book, and the guided tour of the forum, hold back on the temptation to put metals in acids until you know for sure how everything is done, and why, how each metal can complicate the solution or may even steal your gold from you, it will take time to gain an understanding of all of the different processes needed to get from scrap to pure gold, different materials may use different processes and steps, spend the time needed to insure your safety and the safety of others around you, understanding and knowing how to deal safely with processes and of the waste you will generate,
Do the experiments in Hokes book after you have read her book, to get acquainted with the reactions of metals and acids, learning the testing procedures, when your ready begin with a material which is easy to work with and with some of the processes which are easy to understand and do not have that many complications, like memory fingers, this will help you get an understanding of what to expect when you do move on to more complicated processes.
If you cannot wait to jump right in and mix acids and metals and get gold, before spending the time to learn, then you are not ready to do this, and you will just be taking much longer to learn,making it harder on your self to learn, because instead of learning how to properly process you will be spending all of your time trying to figure why you are losing all of your gold, trying to find way to get out of, or fix messes, endangering yourself as you do.
By spending the time studying collecting your scrap and preparing your scrap you will be much further ahead and closer to melting your pure gold.
One of the most important things we really need to learn in all of this is patience, gold does not come easy and these things take time, hard work and study
So far you read something that made it sound so easy, it is not, this is an art and a science, there is a ton of things you will need to learn to be able to do it.
The good news is you have found the best place to learn, at first it will seem overwhelming, remember that the first lesson patience, things will begin to come together as you take your time, and you will begin to understand more and more as you keep studying.
As far as what you done now with this mess (you done everything wrong), it would take a book to explain all of the mistakes you made, it would take a book to tell you how to get your gold back, it would take a book to explain how you should have done it right, luckily that book can be downloaded for free right here off of the forum (look in the book section , or under members signature line) for that book, Hokes Book.
Also in the general chat section take the guided tour of the forum.
Welcome to the forum.
