New Member from Wentzville, Missouri

[CaptnCaveman]

Im 35, out of Wentzville, MO (west of St.Louis)

I found myself here after watching Gold Rush on Discovery, looking up wash plants on YouTube, stumbling across a video on gold refining, google searching. Ive been reading the forum for about a week now. Ive since tore apart all my electronics Ive had in the basement, looking up things on this forum trying to find info on what metals I may find in my junk...well I guess its not junk to me anymore

I have so much to learn, so many questions..Ive started reading Hoke's book as suggested on this forum by everyone with experience, and collecting more items... getting a shop area in my basement ready for disassembly and to organize all my materials as I go along. I have quite the pile of plastic that Im not sure what to do with yet. My long term goal is to be able to take an item and recycle all of it into raw materials. Theres something about breaking down things into its simplist form that intrigues me! I tore apart everything as a kid....and lived

Right now I have 3 Desktop Computers, an Office Printer, a busted laptop, 3 Computer monitors, an old 60 watt crate guitar amp, and some small "AMP" card that appears to have gold fingers and small gold-lined "holes" in the board to practice with. The printer had 6 circuit boards in it, I was very surprised.

Glad to be here and thank you to everyone that helps us n00bs out!

 

[Smack]

Welcome caveman, your headed in the right direction. Keep collecting though, you don't have enough to start any chemical processes yet. It takes a bunch of scrap computers to make it worth while to process.

 

[CaptnCaveman]

How many do you think Ill need to make it worthwhile? Im going to try to process all fingers and pins, mount chips/flatbacks, cpus, and boards for precious metals. And of course figure out what to do with remaining scrap thereafter. I didnt want to get too much stuff before I understand the problems I may have with all that extra stuff Ill be left with. Can you give me a ballpark of how much stuff is good for a first timer?

thanks for the guidance Smack!

 

[nickvc]

In my opinion a good start is a pound of close cut fingers or clean pins , do items separately as this stops complications in your processing. As you seem to be willing to listen and learn take the advice to keep collecting and harvesting your scrap until you have decent quantities and fully understand exactly what's been discussed on the forum, if you don't understand post a question most members who participate on the forum know if you have done your homework and are glad to help this who help themselves. Try reading and downloading the forum handbooks, free, and visit lasersteves site for supplies and very useful videos.
Welcome to the forum.

 

[CaptnCaveman]

thanks. Every word on this forum is valuable

I've got the word out, and seems people are interested at my place of work. Might have stuff coming my way soon. Pays not to burn them bridges