Mr. Randy from Michigan

[Anonymous]

I have been reading this forum for about two-three weeks now. Taken some notes, made some orders. I am about to get started with my new "hobby" within the next few weeks and figured it is time to introduce myself. My name is Randy, I live in Michigan. I like to "garbage pick" every now and again. Got some older computers a few weeks ago and remembered hearing about recovering metal (I thought mainly copper..lol) from them. Did some searching and came across this site.
I will be focusing on the Acid Peroxide and the HCL-CL methods. I have the bleach, hydrogen peroxide, and myriatic acid awaiting me in the garage. I ordered a chemistry set from ebay for around $40.00. (Still waiting for arrival) Comes with chemical gloves, test tubes, test tube clamp and rack, graduated cylinders, some beakers, even 30 ml of Glycerin..(got me thinking about making a cell now) and some other odds and ends. I ordered some SMB from the Chemistry Store.com. Only 3 lbs. I don't even think I'll ever use all that..lol I have right now about 4 motherboards and about 12 cards (PCI, AGP). All kinds of flatpacks and pins on them. Just thought I would give this a try and get me some gold that I can put on my shelf and say i did that... I will however keep looking for scrap pc's and strip them down and save the goodies for a rainy day (unless I get a steady stream of them).
I will be starting with the few fingers and the pins I have gathered. I will be doing them in seperate batches. I hope to at least get enough gold that I can see it, lol. I will be saving the flatpacks and gold tab cornered packs until I find some more definitive instructions/tips on how to harvest the gold somewhat efficiently. I have searched this forum high and low and can not seem to find the info on them. I was assuming grinding them up and going from there, hopefully someone reading this will point me in the right direction.
Anyway, that is me, that is my mission. And I hope to share some things I may learn along the way and my trial and errors.

 

[glorycloud]

Greetings Randy and welcome to the forum.

Just a word of caution for you. Just be sure your garage/ work space is well ventilated.
Especially when disolving your gold flakes in the HCL / clorox. That stuff will make you
gag bad. I bought a good face respirator for acid fumes from Home Depot and some good
sealed goggles as well. Trust me - you will be glad you invest in some protection for your
irreplaceable body parts like eyes and lungs! :shock:

I lived in Saginaw for years and spent some time in East Lansing as well. (Go Green!!)

8)

Good luck in your new hobby!!

 

[Anonymous]

I have been keeping an eye out for some cheap furnace fans or something else in the nature that can move a good bit of air in order to construct a decent fume hood. I am not picky about the fan, i doubt that I will do enough to cause the fan to corrode any time soon. I actually had a few gold flakes and put them in HCL and put a few drops of Pool Shock in it, just to see. It reacted quite nicely, lol. And even with the minimal amount my friend and I had to leave the AO because of the fumes.

I appreciate the concern and advice, and hope to tell more tales of success (and maybe a few knucklehead moments like the above).