I am cleaning up a building that was used for jewelry mfg and is about 4000 sq ft. There is a polishing room, a plating room, a room that was used for burnouts and casting that has two old scrubbers that go up the roof that seem to have some nasty stuff in them, a room that had the ultrasonics with a 4 chamber sediment tank and another room that I think they used for steaming. I am there to collect the polishing dust primarily. All the rooms are separate and have drop ceilings. They are connected above the ceiling tiles. The dust on top the tiles ranges from red in the polishing room to black in the casting room. Lots of dust. I don't need to disturb anything that doesn't have PM in it and want to avoid excessively hazardous material. We are working with masks, safety glasses and shop vacs. Any advice as to what to avoid would be appreciated as well as what precautions to take.
Need advice for safely cleaning Jewelry Factory
- Thread starter redrobin
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The only area of risk I can think of is the plating room where cyanide solutions may have been used so wear gloves if collecting sludges and I'd advise to not mix them if they are in separate tanks in case some acid plating was done. The melting rooms should be the best area especially off the floors and from inside the fume vents, move anything on the floor and vacuum under them. Don't forget to check inside the polishing machines if they are still there and check for any handwash tanks and if you find one or some fill them with strong bleach and leave overnight before trying to empty them, the main content is soap and dead skin..nice and do they smell!
nickvc said:
Sounds like you have been there! The hand wash sink is one of those big birdbath looking things and goes to a separation tank (not sure of the proper name) and we reached in and grabbed 5 pounds of mud out of first bay and sent it in. It came back about 7%. Smelled very bad. Now it makes sense why there was a big open bottle of bleach next to it. It also looks like they had a clothes washer there that fed into that tank.
The casting room has a big 8ft long washout sink that goes to a crude single stage trap. Maybe it was the first place they were used or the material is so heavy it settles fast--but they look home made. This is the room with the hoods. We are demoing the entire space so I was going to be taking down that entire ductwork that goes up through the second floor and out the roof. I think some of the fumes maybe have reacted or something with the metal because it is really rough. Not sure if we should just send in the entire system, along with flooring and ceiling tiles. They had an OSHA shower in there, cabinets for hazardous materials, breathing aperatus', etc.-- so obviously for the FNG it raises some concerns. The cyanide shows that it was stored in another room but honestly, these guys were downsizing the past 20 years so it is anyones guess what they were doing as budgets and people were being cut so I want to be careful.
I think at some point, maybe 15 years ago, they changed their polishing dust collection system to a more efficient one that was self contained. The ductwork going back to the old one had a bunch of material in it that was dry and cleaned up pretty easy. The collector has a bunch all over it and I was wondering if it should be washed down. It was the only place, actually the entire mechanical room where it sits, that I thought we would get anything wet. The question is, once you have vacuumed up the dry stuff from hard surfaces, does the remaining material add up to much and is it worth going after by washing?
There are some specific questions I asked, but mainly I am trying to generate some feedback in order to generate the questions. I really appreciate it because I am a little over my head on this.
Tiles are rarely worth the trouble but try mopping the floor and see if there's any small pieces of metal embedded in the tiles. The hoods and the ducts dismantle and vacuum well then sell them to a scrap yard. The weight of gold will mean most will sink to the bottom of any tanks so clean them out fully and rinse the junk off the bottom.
Irons
Well-known member
nickvc said:
I bet the Sewer Line has some fines.
I'd bet Irons is right.
You might have a little gold mine there, assuming gold was what they mainly dealt with. If silver was the main or only metal, it's only worth 1/63 of gold, for the same amount, and I would probably forget it. Try to think like a miner. Depends on what they made, how much they made of it, what they made it out of, and how clean and tidy their operation was. Everyplace in that building probably has gold in it - dust, floors and walls, cracks and crevices, sludge, carpets, drain traps, wooden floors, etc., etc. Can you explain that room where the fume hoods are in more detail? Is it possible they were refining in there? Any equipment in the building? What kind of jewelry did they make - gold or silver or both? Are there any dried up containers? Post some photos of the various rooms?
If the plating room has wooden floors, I would probably burn some of them and get the gold from the ash. If you can figure out where the gold plating was done, the boards in that area should have more gold.
In the late 60's/early 70's, Harlyn Products, a big old jewelry manufacturer in the L.A. jewelry district (Hill Street area), shut their doors. The small refining room was all wood - floor, ceiling, and walls. They incinerated the wood and supposedly got $30,000 worth of gold, at $42/oz - about $1 million today. After this, I hired a guy that worked in the Harlyn refinery and trained him to be my fire assayer. That's how I know what happened over there. We worked together for about 15 years in several different places. He worked for me about 7 years - then we worked together for about 8. Harlyn is where the infamous George Gadja worked and "learned?" his trade, by the way. As a comparison, I had my last refinery for 5 years and a lot of Au & Ag went through there, mainly from film, gold CPUs, fingers, big contact points, aircraft scrap, and about anything I could cyanide strip. The 12' fume hood was made of plywood and the walls and ceiling were plywood. A 30 gal wooden Thum silver cell was also in that room. At the end, all the wood was burned and the ash sampled and assayed. It wasn't worth refining. The basic difference was that I rarely spill anything.
The first thing I would do is get someone in there with an XRF gun, a good one, well setup for precious metals. It will tell you, at least, if gold is present or not. The actual % numbers it gives are not that accurate except for, maybe, comparison. For example, I would collect a pinch here and a pinch there of dust from the same basic area, mix it, and shoot it several times - takes 30 sec per shot. Same with sludge - I might dry the pile of amalgamated small pinch (or, spoonful or pipe samples) samples first, before shooting. Actually, the best way to sample sludges or powders is to drive a pipe (say, 1/2" or 5/8" ID) to the bottom of the container a couple of different times and remove the material from the pipe each time. Put some Vicks under your nose when dealing with traps. In a few hours, a lot of your questions will be answered. The best way is to ultimately have the samples representing to most total gold, fire assayed. However, XRF will help you decide on what to take and what to leave.
When sampling anything, your goal is to do intelligent things so the total sample is representative in value of the average of the total lot of that particular type of material. One simple "grab" sample is somewhat worthless. Think about what you're doing. It's really pretty simple, yet very important.
After all this, all you have to do is deal with a refiner and try to keep from getting cheated.
You might have a little gold mine there, assuming gold was what they mainly dealt with. If silver was the main or only metal, it's only worth 1/63 of gold, for the same amount, and I would probably forget it. Try to think like a miner. Depends on what they made, how much they made of it, what they made it out of, and how clean and tidy their operation was. Everyplace in that building probably has gold in it - dust, floors and walls, cracks and crevices, sludge, carpets, drain traps, wooden floors, etc., etc. Can you explain that room where the fume hoods are in more detail? Is it possible they were refining in there? Any equipment in the building? What kind of jewelry did they make - gold or silver or both? Are there any dried up containers? Post some photos of the various rooms?
If the plating room has wooden floors, I would probably burn some of them and get the gold from the ash. If you can figure out where the gold plating was done, the boards in that area should have more gold.
In the late 60's/early 70's, Harlyn Products, a big old jewelry manufacturer in the L.A. jewelry district (Hill Street area), shut their doors. The small refining room was all wood - floor, ceiling, and walls. They incinerated the wood and supposedly got $30,000 worth of gold, at $42/oz - about $1 million today. After this, I hired a guy that worked in the Harlyn refinery and trained him to be my fire assayer. That's how I know what happened over there. We worked together for about 15 years in several different places. He worked for me about 7 years - then we worked together for about 8. Harlyn is where the infamous George Gadja worked and "learned?" his trade, by the way. As a comparison, I had my last refinery for 5 years and a lot of Au & Ag went through there, mainly from film, gold CPUs, fingers, big contact points, aircraft scrap, and about anything I could cyanide strip. The 12' fume hood was made of plywood and the walls and ceiling were plywood. A 30 gal wooden Thum silver cell was also in that room. At the end, all the wood was burned and the ash sampled and assayed. It wasn't worth refining. The basic difference was that I rarely spill anything.
The first thing I would do is get someone in there with an XRF gun, a good one, well setup for precious metals. It will tell you, at least, if gold is present or not. The actual % numbers it gives are not that accurate except for, maybe, comparison. For example, I would collect a pinch here and a pinch there of dust from the same basic area, mix it, and shoot it several times - takes 30 sec per shot. Same with sludge - I might dry the pile of amalgamated small pinch (or, spoonful or pipe samples) samples first, before shooting. Actually, the best way to sample sludges or powders is to drive a pipe (say, 1/2" or 5/8" ID) to the bottom of the container a couple of different times and remove the material from the pipe each time. Put some Vicks under your nose when dealing with traps. In a few hours, a lot of your questions will be answered. The best way is to ultimately have the samples representing to most total gold, fire assayed. However, XRF will help you decide on what to take and what to leave.
When sampling anything, your goal is to do intelligent things so the total sample is representative in value of the average of the total lot of that particular type of material. One simple "grab" sample is somewhat worthless. Think about what you're doing. It's really pretty simple, yet very important.
After all this, all you have to do is deal with a refiner and try to keep from getting cheated.
I agree with everything GSP says, especially the last sentence. if jewelery was made there for any period of time everything, sink sludges, wood floors, linoleum tile floors, dust on top of ceiling tiles, and even the sewer lines have gold in them. i have done many cleanups and literally incinerated thousands of pounds of flooring tiles, wood and rugs. Don't overlook old ducts, scrub the insides.
I knew a guy who went into an old building after a jeweler moved out and the place was cleaned up by someone else. The jeweler had been there for over 75 years. He paid the super and removed all of the wood floor boards and replaced them with plywood, burned them and crushed and sifted the ash to make sweeps. He never said how much he made but he moved to a very nice house on Long Island's north shore after that. Did I mention that he knew how to witness at the refinery? Without that skill, I guarantee the house would have been much smaller.
I knew a guy who went into an old building after a jeweler moved out and the place was cleaned up by someone else. The jeweler had been there for over 75 years. He paid the super and removed all of the wood floor boards and replaced them with plywood, burned them and crushed and sifted the ash to make sweeps. He never said how much he made but he moved to a very nice house on Long Island's north shore after that. Did I mention that he knew how to witness at the refinery? Without that skill, I guarantee the house would have been much smaller.
There is one thing you cannot overlook. If you are throwing things in the trash that were exposed to process chemicals, you might be in violation of EPA hazardous waste laws.
Everything that has precious metals and is sent for refining would be exempt from EPA regulations, but the stuff that does not go for refining, that could possibly have toxic metals or chemicals needs to be checked for EPA compliance.
Everything that has precious metals and is sent for refining would be exempt from EPA regulations, but the stuff that does not go for refining, that could possibly have toxic metals or chemicals needs to be checked for EPA compliance.
goldsilverpro said:
They dealt almost exclusively in 14k, 18k gold and plat. Local owned company since 1922 and then purchased by an Indian company in 2008. Their business occupied a 45,000 sq foot building with the factory in about 4.5k of it. They just moved to a smaller building and they are doing a lot of importing now rather than mfg, at least from my understanding. The building was purchased by my brother and father in law and they asked for my help to clean it up. I don't mind sharing what the company was but just have studied the rules of the forum so someone will have to ask if interested. Their big customers were zales and ben bridge.
Today we took apart the cyclone and removed a bunch of duct work for the air returns and the scrubber. I will see if I can figure out how to post some pics.The scrubber branched off into two rooms. One room looks like it was where they burned out the molds. the ductwork was very nasty up there. The other room next to it was where they cast. Lots of stuff in the ductwork there too. Probably won't get the xrf in there at this point. I figure I will just load the trailer up with everything and the refiner can send me home with whatever he doesn't want to work with. Tomorrow I have to figure out how to get all the material off of the lights and off of the pipes that run everywhere. There is probably a 1/32-1/16th on much of it. I might get up there with my leaf blower and hope most hits the ground. I don't think I want to take the time to wipe everything down up there but maybe its worth it?? The floor is poured so I can probably remove drains from the primary sinks to where they dive but thats are far as I think I should go. The sludge from the handwash sink was about 1/2 ounce per pound. Didn't assay for anything except gold.
Again, the main thing was safety. I took the precaution today to use a separate vacuum for everything we took out of the hoods because they were in the room that said plating. I think it was shared or repurposed with casting. No one has said they stripping or bombing but it was just a precaution. On one side of the stainless counter they did have a piece of fiberboard covering it that appeared to have seen some acid. I wondered if it was there because something may have had potential to react with the stainless, or it was a surface to place material on to be plated. The other side of the L shaped counter has a long sink, like 5'ft.
Anyway, I will post some pics. It's dirty as all get out but I am having fun.
You're telling me. I've only repped 6-8 times. I did, however, spend about 20 years working for big refineries and they were all crooks. Every one. At one place, the management had beer meetings 2 or 3 days a week after work to kick around ideas, mainly how to steal while a rep was looking on. I remember one discussion was on how to make a double crucible.4metals said:
One rep from a huge gold wedding ring manufacturer brought a large lot of mixed unmarked karat scrap every 2 or 3 weeks. It took several melts and about 6 hours to do it. The guy never left but he was convinced several times during the day to walk across the street and get a cup of coffee. While gone, some karat gold was dipped out and replaced with copper. Took about a minute.
One guy got 1000# of gold plated CPU lids with Au/Sn solder on them, which ran about an oz of gold per pound, refined them, and sent the customer a check for about 100 oz of gold. The customer returned the check, so the guy ended up with everything.
4metals said:
I have dealt with the same refiner in LA for 20 years. Have always had good results on my clean scrap and I watch it very closely. I deal with the owner and the business bares his fathers name and they are great. I would bring this material to them but the shipping costs would be prohibitive I would think. They are 1200 miles south. There is another family place in Oregon that from my understanding has a great reputation. I've witnessed my clean scrap melts but I wouldn't know what I was doing with this.
redrobin said:
Sounds to me you're talking about Dave Fell. Good guy. Good refiner. Have never met his son. Dave learned from Martin Hannum, who was the biggest jewelry refiner in L.A. for many years.
At only 1%, the value of gold is $200/pound. I would think that would make it cheap enough to ship.I would get some fire assays first, though. What state are you located in?
Another place to check is any old chimneys/flues as in times past many companies burnt their own sweeps off and did it fairly ineffiencently with values going into said orifices. I know someone who made a small fortune cleaning the chimney of one old large manufacturer some years ago.
goldsilverpro said:
Yes, DHF. I got started in the pawn jewelry business in 1989. Used Eastern, PM, Garfield, etc. and was always surprised at how much was lost in the melt and never got over 50% back on mixed scrap that was mostly 14k. We even removed the stones and they would tell us on the phone with a straight face, "not sure where your 10% went, we can re fire the slag." We then sent a bag to Fell and recovered 55% and the experience has always been the same--at least what we expected. Larry has done a good job managing and growing the company this past few years with the industry changing so much. He is as straight of a shooter as they come. I know he has a big changed planned the middle of this year. For the record, and not much else, I am sure things have changed on the now with the companies I metnioned and they are all honest.
I am in Seattle and I thought with AAA just down the road I might spare some of the trucking expense but was going to discuss it with Larry first to get his blessing but after your input and thinking about it, maybe I should try and limit the amount of material I plan on dumping on the doorstep and figure out a way to get it where it needs to go.
Put in another day today. Got much of the ductwork removed and separated between mostly clean and not. Removed the exhaust vent for burnout and casting. I took 4 samples in to get x rayed. polishing room floor, exhaust vent, air return and general floor dust. They tested 6, 9, 11 and 14k. !4k was from the hood/exhaust. I don't have any idea how to estimate the weight of metal vs. other material. If anyone has some input it would be appreciated. I would also be looking for some tips to do a small scale burn so I don't have to haul so much. Thanks in advance.
The testing came back as karat readings? Are these meltable filings? I have seen cleanups where ducting was lined with fine filing dust which was meltable. I would expect the reading to come back as a lower percentage as gold nothing as high as even 6 karat.
As far as burning goes I have seen brushes and wheels burned in these cans and the burned materials still assayed as high as the same type material burned in an incinerator. http://www.elastec.com/portableincinerators/smartash/
Wood flooring would also burn well in these.
As far as burning goes I have seen brushes and wheels burned in these cans and the burned materials still assayed as high as the same type material burned in an incinerator. http://www.elastec.com/portableincinerators/smartash/
Wood flooring would also burn well in these.
