Illinois e-scrapper

[Frankenstyne]

Hello everyone,

My name is Travis, but anyone who knows me online calls me Freak. I am disabled and recently quit smoking so im taking up a hobby to do something with my hands. Gold refining is gonna be it. I have been working with my dad on this for a few months now. We have e-scrap coming in steady, so its time to get the chemicals processing. I have read and reread posts on here and i cant thank you all enough for putting this forum together. It has been a blessing. I am wishing i had a photographic memory though. I am 38, live in southern eastern Illinois, and used to work at an aluminum mill. I am one of those guys who learns more from doing then reading but alot of this "Safety" id rather read then learn from the wrong doing. Honestly im kinda overwhelmed with how much info is on this sight.

Pretty much what i have been doing is depopulating circuit boards, separating diodes, capacitors, copper wire, flat packs, gold plated items, and whatever else is on them. I have a nice pile of gold plated pins. After reading some of these posts, I guess I have about a half a gram of gold so far, but that is ok for its only the beginning. Happy refining!

 

[etack]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for reading before you dive in.

look it up first and you will do fine.

Looking at your pins when you are pulling your pins if you are cutting them only cut the gold part. It will save you some time(maybe). 8)

If you have Ta caps I will buy them too.

Eric

 

[Frankenstyne]

If you have Ta caps I will buy them too.

Cheers Etack! It looks like im going to have alot of things left over that I will be looking to move in other ways. I have tried breaking down flat packs but it looks like I have made a mess rather then anything else.I have piles of oil filled capacitors and ceramic capacitors, point me to pics of what u are looking for? or i can post pics of what i have, either way.

 

[etack]

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=15909


This is my thread.

Eric

 

[Frankenstyne]

Here is a pic of my test run material for the acid peroxide bath. Should i keep the post here going with my run or should i start another thread somewhere else? This will probably take me a few days to get going. When i get all the materials and chemicals ready to run ill post the whole process and hope for constructive criticism, or a that is how i would have done it (is what im hoping for). Once again I have to thank all of you for putting this forum together it has been a joy to read.

 

[jimdoc]

Here is a pic of my test run material for the acid peroxide bath. Should i keep the post here going with my run or should i start another thread somewhere else? This will probably take me a few days to get going. When i get all the materials and chemicals ready to run ill post the whole process and hope for constructive criticism, or a that is how i would have done it (is what im hoping for). Once again I have to thank all of you for putting this forum together it has been a joy to read.

Gold fingers average 2 grams per lb of clean cut material. Your batch will yield very little. It would probably be easier to wait until you get more in my opinion. I know you are talking test run here, but when you can't see the gold it gets frustrating.

Jim

 

[etack]

I think that you should keep it here, but more importantly I think you should keep on saving material. you should start with more or you will lose a larger % of your gold with small amounts.


Keep on saving and reading though the winter come spring you might have a lot to process and warmer weather as well.

Eric

 

[Frankenstyne]

I think that you should keep it here, but more importantly I think you should keep on saving material. you should start with more or you will lose a larger % of your gold with small amounts.


Keep on saving and reading though the winter come spring you might have a lot to process and warmer weather as well.

Eric

Warm weather is a good idea considering i will have to go out of town to do this. My house is right next to a elementary school, and i refuse to do this here. Safety first, not only for me. It would kill me if i was doing something here and a kid got hurt, I think the gases would disapate before they got to the school but im not even going to chance it. I have a steady stream of material coming in the door so by spring time i will have a bunch of gold saved up among other things. Thank you again Eric.

 

[Frankenstyne]

One thing i am having trouble understanding/finding a good post on, is after i use my electrolyte process and i have a (pudding) pile of gold, what are the next steps to removing/washing/drying the gold?

I am certain there is a post here on it but i cant find it and i dont know the key words to search for. I apologize in advance for this post to i know someones going to smack me in the forehead with it.

 

[Geo]

i had a horrible experience about 16 years ago. i neighbors child broke into a locker i kept chemicals in outside behind my shed. he took a container of nitric acid that had 200 ml's of concentrated nitric. he was 8 or 9 at the time. he got it opened and somehow spilled it down the front of his shirt. he was scared and didnt tell anyone. before his parents found out about it, it had caused some pretty bad burns and he lost quite a bit of skin off of his chest. i felt horrible and disposed of everything i had at the time.i didnt start back dealing with chemicals again until a few years ago. now i make sure to warn my neighbors to to keep their children away from my work area and still use a locker, but this time i reinforced it with a cross bar and two locks.

 

[grance]

some of those fingers look like there from old nintendo games if they are I hope you checked the collector value of them first. I do collect some of the old games but heres a website I use to buy and sell games www.lukiegames.com

 

[Frankenstyne]

some of those fingers look like there from old nintendo games if they are I hope you checked the collector value of them first. I do collect some of the old games but heres a website I use to buy and sell games http://www.lukiegames.com

Yeah none of them were from those, all were video cards, except a couple of dial up modem boards. Then in the pile of pins i have from motherboards, cell phones parts, and i have some jewelry as well.

 

[Frankenstyne]

One thing i am having trouble understanding/finding a good post on, is after i use my electrolyte process and i have a (pudding) pile of gold, what are the next steps to removing/washing/drying the gold?

I am certain there is a post here on it but i cant find it and i dont know the key words to search for. I apologize in advance for this post to i know someones going to smack me in the forehead with it.

FOUND IT!

(7) What happens. As the gold strips, the amperage drops. When the amps fall to zero, the gold is completely stripped. The gold forms in the solution as a black powder. At the end, when the amps approach zero, I usually increase the voltage. The amps will go up a bit and then finally drop back to zero. With a good setup, normal gold plating should strip in a few minutes.

At some point, there will be so much black powder that it will cause a partial short and the amps won't go to zero. At this point, it is time to harvest the gold. You can remove the electrodes and allow the powder to settle in the form of a sludge. Carefully decant (pour) the solution off of the sludge. The solution can then be re-used. If a little sludge is poured off with the solution, don't worry about it - you'll get it next time.

After decanting, pour the sludge into about 7 to 10 times it's volume of water. Let the gold settle and decant or siphon off the solution. Rinse the sludge a few times. Collect the sludge and dissolve it in a minimum amount of aqua regia and refine as normal.

 

[Frankenstyne]

It is Time!!!

 

[niteliteone]

We're ready