Newbie made a mess, go figure

[canute7]

Hi all. I did my 1st batch of RAM fingers and all seemed to go well.
I then pulled a bone head mistake by putting a pound and a half of assorted pins in my AP. What I ended up with was/is a fused together MESS that has now turned the color of oxidized copper(white-ish blue green).
Sorry, can't do pictures.

So, my questions are... Did I ruin my AP?( I did filter my AP and bubbled it for 48 hours) Should I now put the MESS in a electrolytic cell? Or is it beyond saving?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks, Joe

 

[MysticColby]

I'm confused.
what was done to RAM fingers, and at what point did you add pins?
It sounds like you used AP on RAM fingers, then added pins on top of that.
I'm no expert, but you could of just saturated the AP.
always keep different things separate.

 

[ilikesilver]

remove all your ram boards and rinse well, set aside. heat the AP on a hot plate outdoors slowly and boil the pins. They will separate and your gold on the pins will come off. dont bring it to a boil, more like a low simmer. once all the gold has come off you should see it either floating around in your AP fluid, or it will drop to the bottom that looks like BLACK sediment. Then you will have to filter it off afterwords. It may take two or three times to boil/simmer it all off. good luck, i did the exact same thing!! tim

 

[solar_plasma]

That sounds quite normal. If you can post a picture of the pins, it would be easier to tell. Just go on APing the pins until ALL basemetals are dissolved. It may take 2 weeks and several additions of HCl and a fine air bubbler. As long it is emerald green, the AP is working. Brown means more HCL is needed. Stir recently.

 

[canute7]

Thanks for the advice. Just to be clear, I did the RAM fingers. I had no problems with them. Everything came out just fine with the RAM. They are NOT in with the pins. Never were. I will heat the AP and finish the pins off.
Thanks again, Joe.

 

[Pantherlikher]

Hello...
Having found the same coloration when doing another batch in my saturated AP, I did a search in Lazer Steve's google search of the forum and found old posts about AP problems. Reading through them introduced me to Copper cloride 1. AP starts with Copper Cloride1 (CUCL1?) Then turns it to Copper Cloride2 which is emerald green.
The fix was simply to add alittle more HCL and continue bubbling. Worked to imagine that.
Pins are low grade with alot of base metals so it's easy to oversaturate the AP causing it to not complete the cycle.

What does the heat do? allow the AP solution to digest further?

B.S.
...Late at night/ early morning, tends to put clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee and....it's so vain...
I hate getting songs stuck in my head...but helps ease the ringing in my ears.

 

[solar_plasma]

Reading through them introduced me to Copper cloride 1. AP starts with Copper Cloride1 (CUCL1?) Then turns it to Copper Cloride2 which is emerald green.

The correct syntax is copper(I)chloride or CuCl and copper(II)chloride or CuCl2.

 

[Pantherlikher]

Thanks solar_plasma.
As I said, it was very late/ early AM and couldn't get my hair fertilizer to come up with the proper syntax but knew what I wanted to say.

B.S.
...It's great we can help each other learn everthing correctly...

 

[solar_plasma]

I am glad, when I can post something usefull beside my sometimes strange questions :lol: